“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thess. 4:16-17
Once upon a time there was a little girl whose eyes were glued to the sky. Didn’t think eyes can be glued to the sky, fastened so tight they can’t look away, so stuck on the sky nothing can unglue them? This girl’s eyes were so glued to the sky decades later they were just as un-stuckable – as though that were a word – as all along. She didn’t look, talk, or behave like a girl anymore. But her eyes were just as stuck on the sky as all along. Think I’m making up a story? Ah, but I’m not. This is a true tale with the happiest ending ever. I confess her eyes haven’t always been fixed on the sky, and that I took a little liberty, or creative license, in describing the “stuckness” – another made-up word – of her eyes. She is human. Sometimes her eyes have been in the wrong places. On the wrong things. But she has returned her stare to the sky. The eyes of her heart upward. If you don’t believe me, ask the woman. She’s my friend.
“I’ve been looking at the sky ever since I was a little girl,” my new friend told me one day. “I have been fascinated by it,” she essentially said.
By what? Clouds? The sun? Moon? Stars? Rainbows? Storms?
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been waiting for Jesus to come back,” she said. She is so in love with the Lord Jesus Christ she got choked up one day talking about Him. She said she has literally been fascinated with the sky because she can’t wait until He comes back to take her into His forever Kingdom. Leave it to a little girl and her little girl’s faith to stare at the sky in wait of Jesus to come down and get her and all His followers to be with Him forever. But she isn’t a little girl anymore. She’s a woman. Whose love for Jesus is so strong she still stares at the sky waiting for Him. Sometimes her eyes look to other places. She’s living in this world, after all, with a job, family, etc. Sometimes she falls in her thoughts and actions and needs to repent. But though in this world, her citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). With her Lord and Savior. Her eyes aren’t the only part of her fixated on the sky. So is her heart. She knows this world will one day be gone. This girl’s, now woman’s King will one day come from the sky, whisk her off her feet and take her into eternity with Him.
How consumed with and weighed down we get by this life’s cares and trials! If only we would repent of our sins, believe in Christ as Lord, and devote our hearts and lives to Him for eternity! If only we would glue our eyes – and hearts – skyward! To Jesus!