The Waiting Game

     "Waiting" for something has never been one of my strong points.  I remember our many car trips to Florida during the Winter months from the time I was eight years old.  There was no in car videos to watch, or electronic games to play much less a super highway to get us to St. Petersburg quickly.  No, the roads were two lane and ran through the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee.  It was a long drive usually taking us two and a half days to get there.  Naturally, I was bored so I frequently asked the question, "When will we get there?"  My mother was wise and always made traveling more fun by making up games.  For example, we would see many billboards along the way hyping one type of attraction or another such as:  "See Rock City" or "Come and see Dogpatch".  Then, there was my favorite in Kentucky called "Fort Sequoia" where they supposedly sold authentic native American headdresses and items.  So, knowing how I noticed these signs, my mother proposed that I counted how many signs there were until we got to the location or passed it.  This certainly kept me occupied, and helped me play the waiting game.

Boarded up and prepared for the storm

     In much the same way, waiting on a hurricane is about as much fun as traveling in the back seat of a car when you are a little girl full of energy.  Our current weather has been building for a couple of week's now and like most storms, it is a waiting game.  Meteorologists do the best they can to predict where and when a storm will hit, but only God knows its final course.  Meanwhile, we boarded up our windows with the help of a godly man, bought gas for our generator, stocked up on food we might need, made certain we had fuel for our camp stove, and now, we are waiting on a very slow moving storm that the weather people assure us will turn North any time now.
     As I moved through our neighborhood today, I did not see too many houses boarded up since the track has been back and forth so much.  Some might believe we went into overkill, but we have had seven hurricanes pass over our Central Florida location.  The last one did a great deal of damage so we will not take any chances.  
     Thinking about all our preparations reminded me of the ten virgins who trimmed their lamps in preparation for the bridegroom. This was a story about the Kingdom of Heaven.  The parable is found in Matthew 25:1-13 (please read this).  These women in the story were possibly bridesmaids or part of the official wedding party in some capacity.  Jesus said five were wise and five were foolish.  The wise virgins had brought along extra oil for their lamps but the foolish did not.  Since the bridegroom did not come right away, the women fell asleep.  At a later hour, a cry went up that the bridegroom was coming.  The foolish virgins realized they did not have enough oil for their lamps and asked to borrow from the wise.  However, the wise virgins told them to go buy from a seller.  While these foolish women were gone, the bridegroom came and the wise virgins went in to the celebration.  When the foolish virgins returned from getting more oil, they realized they had missed the bridegroom and found themselves shut out of the celebration.  They were not given entrance since they had come late.  In verse 13, Jesus tells his listeners the moral of this parable:  "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour."  Indeed, no one knows when Jesus will return for His church....only the Father knows.  This is why we must be ready like the five wise virgins.
     Keeping our eyes on the Lord is hard to do in these days filled with distractions in our world.  It seems that world events, natural disasters, and politics tend to fill our minds with grave concerns so much so that it is easy to focus on them rather than the renewal of our minds in Christ.  Jesus warned us to keep watch.  If we do not know the Lord, today is the day of salvation because we are not promised tomorrow to make Christ our Lord.  On the other hand, if we are believers, then we need to grow in our faith by reading His Word, prayer and fellowship.  Like the wise virgins, we will be ready when the bridegroom comes.
     Waiting is never easy whether it is a storm or a long car trip, but the reward in the end, is worth every moment of preparation.  One day, the sky will split, the trump will sound and our beloved Bridegroom will return for His people.  Don't miss it!  Selah!