[1]
Mark 13:32-37 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)
32 “No one knows when that day or hour will come.
Even the angels in heaven and the Son don’t know. Only the Father knows. 33 Be careful! Watch! You
don’t know the exact time. 34 It is like a man who went on a trip. As he left
home, he put his servants in charge. He assigned work to each one and ordered
the guard to be alert.35 Therefore, be alert, because you don’t know when the owner of the
house will return. It could be in the evening or at midnight or at dawn or in
the morning. 36 Make sure he doesn’t come suddenly and find you asleep.37 I’m telling everyone
what I’m telling you: ‘Be alert!’”
Christ promised to return. He
indeed left us. That was His great sign “I go and if I go I will come again.”
As a math teacher, I got involved
trying to help students do mathematics. Some students do math easily and well.
It is a delight to have them in the classroom. There was Amos[2]
who did very well. He attended regularly and caught onto the concepts easily.
It was easy to view him simply as an excellent student. He was a popular tutor
and could tutor as well in one language as in a second language.
As a teacher it was easy to simply
treat Amos as another student, this time a good one. But he was also a student
with needs. He was deeply in love with Avis. She was a couple years older than
he and working on her doctorate in psychology. Like so many psychology
students, she was doing psychology because she wanted to discover what was
making her problems. She had been diagnosed as bipolar, and her normal state
was depression. She could consciously control this to the point that she was a
successful graduate student.
Yet, her depression had a
continuing effect on the couple’s romantic experience. Amos was very careful to
understand and support Avis. He was always attuned to her needs. They married
and bought a home in a beautiful mountain town.
We did our best to help support
and encourage the young couple. We visited them whenever we could and invited
them to our home and to go on trips to places like Joshua Tree National Park.
They loved to go and seemed to appreciate the attention.
However, the progression of the
manic-depressive disease continued to erode their relationship. Eventually they
parted company. Their separation came as a surprise to me. I am certainly
fairly knowledgeable about living in a relationship with someone bipolar, but I
didn’t sense that their union was that fragile.
Even so, I am fully aware that
Christ has promised to return. His promise warns us that His coming will be
when we least expect it. It will be a marvelous event, but it does run the risk
of bring infinitely more catastrophic than a divorce to us, if we do not remain
prepared.
Lord, help me to be alert to more of the trials my friends and students
are experiencing and to help wherever I can. And keep me alert to Your soon
return
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