Random

Just a few random thoughts for a Tuesday.

Caught Netanyahu's speech to Congress. It made me wish there was a candidate for the American Presidency with his bearing and forthrightness. Still hoping somebody like that steps up, but haven't seen him (or her) yet.

Tornado season is pretty awful this time around. Barely catching our breath from Joplin, there seem to be a rash of new tornados running through Oklahoma.

Which somehow brings me to the end-time subject. I sort of feel sorry for the guy who predicted the "Rapture" this past Saturday, but can't really figure out what motivated him.

Just walking through some basic stuff in that area: The Bible's pretty explicit that we won't know the day or hour, thief in the night, and all that stuff. So if he is a committed evangelical, why did he overlook that?

Then, just suppose for a moment that he had some sort of divine inspiration that it was happening on Saturday. Think about it, whether he was right or not, his widely publicized predictions were widely and pretty much universally mocked and ridiculed, as was he. So even if he did predict it correctly and all the worthy followers of Christ disappeared from the earth Saturday. The only possible motivation he could have had for warning everyone about it in advance would have been the hope that one or two people out there would have taken him seriously and got right with God in time for the event. But from what I hear, he sort of seemed to expect to just be vindicated, sort of like "ha, ha, nya, nya, I was right and you're left behind to suffer the Great Tribulation!" That's not really very Christian either.

Then there's the little problem that as I understand it, most theologians think the whole "Rapture" concept is sort of bunk, just made up by misreading and out-of-context interpretations of various passages in the Bible. Oh well.

It's intriguing to see those sensationalist programs on the History and Discovery channels about end times prophecy, tying apocalyptic prophecies together to conclude they all have similar end of the world stories and all seem to point to it happening by next year.

Intriguing, but not important. As a believer, I'm looking for Christ's return like anybody, and understand I should try to be a solid citizen of the faith regardless of whether it happens in my lifetime. But it doesn't make sense to get all absorbed in the whole thing - we all need to live our lives as best we can and let what happens happen.

Looking around the world, it's still easy to be a bit concerned with all the stuff going on. We're in the middle of the disintegration of America, Iran seems likely to have nuclear weapons very soon that they can't wait to lob into Israel, the so-called "Arab Spring" seems more likely to turn the rest of the region into little Irans with the same goals, the little Communist Chavez in Venezuela is reportedly setting up missiles he's aiming at the United States. Tornados and earthquakes and volcanos, Oh My! The country is broke, gas costs 4 bucks a gallon, food prices are skyrocketing, our kids graduate from high school without being able to read a newspaper or balance a checkbook, more people now live off the government than by private means, and half the country is more interested in arguing about whether gay people should get married.

Put them all together, and the end of the world seems inevitable. Maybe the Rapture would be a good thing, but then again only if I qualify and can somehow get my loved ones to jump the line and come with me.

Maybe that's it - the guy was right about the Rapture happening on Saturday! It just turned out that Jesus arrived but couldn't find anybody worthy enough to take to Heaven, so he just called the whole thing off.