Procrastination and the Second Coming

There is, officially, just a week to go until Christmas and I am, like many other people, not ready.

During the discussion in the lesson I gave last Sunday, we talked about one possible reason why God isn't telling us exactly when the Second Coming will be: Procrastination. Some people have a tendency to put things off until the last minute. For example, if a person knows that Christmas isn't until December 25, they might figure that they have a few months or weeks or several days to get completely ready for it... and they don't. I suspect that, just shy of Black Friday, December 24th is one of the busiest days for retail stores. But usually, by the time people realize that they can't put things off any longer, it's too late to get the job done properly.

Can you imagine what would happen if everyone knew what day the second coming would be? There would probably be a lot of people that put off repenting until just before then, only to realize that repentance is a process that takes longer than most people think. In order to repent properly, a person needs to invest some time into it. The sooner they start, the better. But if a person checks their calendar and sees that the second coming isn't going to happen for a while, they might figure that they can start the repentance process later.

But by not telling us when the second coming will be, God has made procrastination seem like a far less viable option. We can't say that we have at least a few months or weeks until the big day, because nobody knows when the big day is going to be. It might be a long time away, but it also might be tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe the time for last-minute repentance is now. It's certainly time to begin our "last minute" Christmas preparations. Speaking of which, I have some shopping to do and some projects to work on, not to mention a few other tasks I need to attend to today. I'd better get to work.