Expecting Christ to return is sort of like … Waiting in the Car Without Breaking the Windshield
Do you expect Jesus to come back in the next thirty years? The next thirty months? The next thirty seconds?
When we were children, my older brother and I often went in the car with my dad while he ran various errands. I guess there was less child abduction back then, because Dad would frequently leave us in the car while he ran into the dry cleaners, the post office, or the convenience store.
On one particular day, Dad needed to visit someone in the hospital. He left us in the car with his usual two instructions: Don’t hurt each other, and don’t hurt the car. We didn’t know exactly how long he’d be gone, but we knew he could return at any time.
 The next twenty minutes or so are sort of a black hole in my memory. I don’t remember why my brother was in the backseat, why I was in the front seat, or what the argument was about. I do know I said something that provoked him (a bad habit little brothers tend to have) and that he felt compelled to retaliate. He planted both feet firmly in the back of the front passenger’s seat where I was sitting, and gave it a might push.
You’d think that an eight-year-old head shattering a car windshield would result in considerable injury and pain, and at least bring some blood, but there was none of that. Just a dull thud, a shattered windshield, and a flurry of finger pointing about whose fault it was.
My dad was accustomed to finding a wrestling match or pouting feud in the car when he was gone for very long, but I doubt that he ever expected to return to a shattered windshield. The only thing more unusual than the windshield that he noted upon his return, was the quasi-angelic posture of his two guilt-ridden little boys.
“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.”
(Matthew 24:45-50)
The way my brother and I waited in the car that day was a lot like the way the “bad servant” waited for his master in this parable. We began convincing ourselves that he wasn’t coming back right away. It’s not that we thought he’d never come back, we just imagined it to always be a future event instead of something that could happen at that very moment. As a result, we behaved in a way that made us lose track of the fact that he was coming back at all.
In disregarding my father’s parting commands, I ended up damaging the two things with which he had entrusted me: the car, and my relationship with my brother.
The Bible is clear that Jesus’ return will be sudden and that his followers will be accountable. The only children likely to rejoice at his coming will be the ones that managed to live and behave as if he had never left the car.
Are you acting like your dad’s in the car?
How would you describe your attitude today about Christ’s return? Like a baby due in nine monthssoon and certain, and you think you know about when? Like a man landing on Jupiterprobably not in your lifetime? Like World War IIIpossible, but boy you hope not? Or like someone who’s crept into the room right now, undetectedand is just waiting to tap you on the shoulder?
You might also look at … 2 Timothy 4:7-8; Revelation 22:20 | 
