Sad to say, I don’t do nearly as much reading for pleasure as I used to. Nowadays, it feels like such a luxury to pick up a book – especially fiction – and check out of reality for a few minutes or a few hours. There’s an urgency in me to fill every moment with something constructive, and reading just for fun feels like an indulgence I can hardly afford.

This isn’t at all a critique of my reading friends! Truth be told – I’m envious that you can relax and immerse yourselves in a well-told story, gliding over pages and through chapters with nary a sense of guilt or neglect of duties. You can do that. I cannot.

But I could in the past. After seeing the movie “The Notebook,” this die-hard romantic went through a long stage of reading every Nicholas Sparks book I could get my hands on. I loved his stories, but after a few books, I realized that for the most part, I could pretty much figure out how things would wrap up fairly early on. With one exception…

Page by page, I walked through this lovely romance, already imagining the sweet ending (a la Nicholas Sparks) that was coming my way. These characters were dancing in step with everything I thought I knew was about to happen. And then I heard in my mind the screech of a record player needle scraping across an album – and abrupt silence. Suddenly, in this seemingly predictable story line, there was a major plot twist! It turned out to be a very pleasant – although surprising to me – conclusion, and the girl who loves happy endings walked away delighted.

And I have to say – didn’t see that coming!

I’m betting you’ve had a plot twist or two in the story of your own life. And if you haven’t, buckle up. Unexpected changes – good or bad – come with the territory. And yet, in this world of uncertainty, there is one sure thing you can count on – Jesus Christ will one day return to the earth He left over 2,000 years ago.

The Bible talks extensively about the Second Coming of Christ in both the Old and New Testaments. We can know what that Day will look like because God tells us. He lays out the environment preceding the Day – the darkness of the culture, the evil festering in the hearts of men, and the groaning of the earth as it longs for restoration. He describes the ordinariness of a Day that’s interrupted by the Lord’s “loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Jesus will appear in the clouds – returning  just as He was taken up (Revelation 1:7, Acts 1:9). He’ll be accompanied by the angels (Matthew 16:27, 25:31), and the dead in Christ will rise with new, imperishable bodies (1 Corinthians 15:52). Then the angels of God “will gather His elect from the four winds” (Matthew 24:31), and “we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

My friends, when that trumpet sounds, we will be changed (1 Corinthians 15:22)! “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). We “will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away” (1 Peter 5:4). We will be made “blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). Talk about a transformation! This is THE DAY that believers for centuries have joyously anticipated – when our Savior returns to retrieve us who have been longing for our heavenly home!

Just as there is much Scripture giving the details of that Day, there are also many verses telling us that the Sovereign God is the One and only One Who knows when that Day will come (Matthew 24:36). It will come “like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2), “at an hour when (we) do not expect Him” (Luke 12:40), “as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west” (Matthew 24:27). We “do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew 25:13).

And so we are to “be awake and sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). While we anticipate the return of Christ with great joy, those who’ve chosen to exclude Him from their lives will have a very different experience on that Day. And there will be no turning back. The harvest is ripe. So live ready. Be found faithful – in loving the Lord, loving others, and expending every ounce of energy into sharing the hope of Christ with the lost.

There will be many on that Day who tragically say, “Didn’t see that coming!” But may that not be true due to our lack of effort in sharing Christ with them.

“Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day – and not only me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.” – 2 Timothy 4:8