Always Ready

We’re going on a month now since my fiancé and I were supposed to get married and over a month since I was going to move overseas. My bags have been (mostly) packed since the beginning of June, and we still don’t know when I’ll be able to move—or get married. In some ways, you would think that a person like me, who loves time to prepare for things, would be relieved at the extra time to make preparations for two such life-altering occurrences, but while it is true that I have been able to do a lot more things to get ready than I initially was going to be able to, I’ve found myself much more angsty from this prolonged “preparation” time largely because it has required me to live in a state of being always ready.

My favorite clothes and other necessities have been in suitcases for weeks. Sometimes I’ve needed to dig something out to use, but then must remember to pack it back in the right suitcase so the carefully measured weight stays the same. I could have waited to pack, had I known how long our plans would be delayed, but the constant unknown of when I’ll be able to travel directs me to be as prepared as I can be to leave at a moment’s notice. These weeks have shown me that being always ready for something you know is coming but know not when is frustrating, wearying, and just plain exhausting.

But as I’ve been thinking about this state of always being ready, the Lord has reminded (and convicted) me that this state is exactly the one He has called me to be in as I wait for His return. This tension that I have been annoyed at of living in some sort of in-between world mirrors the tension I am to embrace spiritually as I live in the already-but-not-yet reality of God’s kingdom.

Before His crucifixion, when Jesus is talking to His disciples about His second coming, He tells them, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. […] Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:36, 44, ESV). He goes on to tell parables about people who were living their lives unprepared—wedding guests unprepared for the arrival of the groom and servants unprepared for their master’s return—and says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13, ESV).

In Mark’s accounting, Jesus commands, “Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake” (Mark 13:33-37). And in Luke, Jesus says, “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks” (Luke 12:35-36, ESV).

All of these passages impress upon the reader a strong sense of active waiting, of constant readiness and relentless alertness. Notice the phrases, “be ready,” “watch,” “be on guard,” “keep awake,” “stay awake,” “stay awake,” “stay awake,” “stay dressed for action,” “keep your lamps burning.” These things all require effort, stamina, and intentional action. Just keeping a lamp burning would require making a plan to have enough oil, including working so that resources would be available to purchase the oil, keeping the lamp clean, and watching the lamp 24/7 to make sure the oil did not run out. Staying awake also takes effort, especially when you are tired and it seems like you’ve been waiting forever already. Yet these things are pictures of what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

Through this temporal waiting period of anticipating my move and marriage, the Lord has given me a glimpse into how I am to live as His Bride. I now have a point of reference for what it looks like to live every day being ready to go. I understand in a more experiential way what it means to live in one place while keeping my ties to it loose, so that I am ready to leave the moment the doors open.

I live in my house in the United States, but in another place I have another house waiting on me—a house that I direct time and attention and affection toward building up with my future husband. In the same way, on a spiritual level, I live in my home on Earth, but in another Place I have another home waiting on me—a home that I should be directing time and attention and affection toward building up with my forever Husband. I am not to completely detach from my current home—I still live here; it is the place where God has put me to invest in for this time. But neither am I to neglect my other home or sit by and snooze because its coming seems so far away.

Exactly how this plays out practically when it comes to our forever home, I am still learning, just as God is still teaching me how to practically (and placidly) live in this active-waiting stage of prolonged engagement. But I think it’s safe to say that, since God desires us to live each day in this state of readiness for His return, His Spirit will provide the strength and guidance we need to do so.

He is coming. We don’t know when, but we know He is. So let’s not wait until the last moment to ready ourselves for His return. In His strength, with His peace and perseverance and wisdom, let’s be always ready for that day and the eternity to come. And, oh, what a glorious day that will be.

I would love to hear from those of you who have studied God’s Word—what do you think it looks like on a day-to-day basis to live always ready for Christ’s return?

PC: Christina Hildreth. Used with permission.

Why Trace Time?

In 2020 America, we are suffering from a great lack of historical knowledge. Perhaps you’ve seen the videos of journalists stopping people on the street to ask them questions about the history of the country in which they were born and raised. They find people who think the Civil War was fought in the 1950s, who can’t recognize or even name the first president, who think that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat, who don’t know how many states there are, the list goes on and on…

Some might think that’s no big deal, that there’s no point in knowing useless facts like names and dates, and that names and dates is all history is about anyway. But an ignorance regarding names and dates is a sign of a greater ignorance. Admittedly, it’s not that important to know the exact date of a given historical event, but if someone can’t even assign the Declaration of Independence or World War II to the right century, then they have no understanding of the larger trajectory of the past that has led us to where we are today. And when it comes to names, we must remember that names are not just names; they are attached to people—people who lived as surely as you and I are living, who influenced the world around them, and whose legacy is still affecting today, whether we see it or not. 

History is not just names and dates. Studying history is essentially studying the story of humanity—what people have done, where they have gone, how they have lived and interacted with one another. It is the means by which we are able to make sense of our current context. A person with no knowledge of history is akin to an alien dropping into our world with absolutely no idea of how things work or how things got to be the way they are. If you’ve ever been to a different country (or in some cases to a different part of the United States), you might have noticed how different customs are based on the historical backgrounds of those places. Without an understanding of the historical background, the customs might seem odd, but with such an understanding, they become clearer.

We understand this on an individual level. We can look back at our own personal histories and see how our past has led to our present, how former experiences have shaped current perspectives, emotions, and actions. If you woke up tomorrow with complete amnesia, you’d struggle to know how to move forward because you would have no context for your life. In extrapolating that idea to a family or society, we can see how a knowledge of collective past experiences provides a grounding from which to approach current realities and step into the future. As we begin to understand the why behind certain customs or situations, we find ourselves becoming more empathetic because our perspective is an informed one. We are closer to knowing the whole story.

And that’s why having a knowledge of history is important and why the current historical ignorance is concerning. Some say the problem is that history is not being taught at all in schools any longer. Perhaps this is true in some cases. In other cases, what is called “history” is actually politicized, agenda-driven indoctrination. The powers-that-be decide what version of the story should be told, and that is the only picture the students receive unless they take the initiative to ask questions and find the answers themselves. In either case, we end up with a woefully ill-equipped citizenry. In the first case, we are left with sheer ignorance; in the latter, we are left with citizens who are only given half of the foundation they need to move forward (if that).    

One of the best antidotes to this lack of education, I believe, is to go to the source. In other words, if you want to know about George Washington or Booker T. Washington, read their own writings. If you want to know about a battle, read the official military accounts as well as diaries of soldiers who fought in it. And when reading what we call “secondary sources,” i.e. sources that are not written by eyewitnesses of an event, be mindful of any biases that the authors might have and see whether they cite their sources, and if so, what sources they cite.

Before we can even get to this point, though, there has to be an interest, a motivation to learn, an understanding that history is important and that—more than that—it’s often fun! And that’s one of the reasons I’ve begun the page Time Tracing: How to Engage with History on Facebook and Instagram. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might have picked up on the fact that I love history—like a lot—and have for as long as I can remember. This love of history turned into a more formal pursuit as I majored in history in college and decided to pursue work in the archival field. And it was in these settings that I gained an even greater appreciation of the importance of knowing about the past.

Now that I’m no longer working outside the home, I’ve decided to take my passion for history and my educational and professional training and turn it into something that will hopefully help inspire and equip others to learn more about their family’s and country’s history and motivate those in their circles of influence to do the same. There’s just something about learning about how people lived in different times and places from our own that inspires the imagination and stirs the intellect, especially when we can trace their time directly to our own.

If you’d like to learn more about history and genealogy, including how to learn more on your own, I invite you to like/follow Time Tracing on Facebook and Instagram: @time.tracing. I look forward to continuing to learn alongside you all!

PC: Keri-Lynn Paulson. Used with permission.