"I'll be right back"

Regarding the issue of how God accounts for time, the LifeWay commentary notes on page 134 that “We are simply not in a position to make a judgment on this matter.” This reminded me of Rick Warren’s statement, “It’s like trying to explain the Internet to ants. They can’t understand it.”

After reading 2 Peter 3:8-10, for the lesson “Maximum effort is required”, I thought of several ideas for illustrations.

1. Suppose you are in a meeting room with a few peers and your waiting on the boss to attend the meeting, but he is late. Would you wait for him/her? Some peers may want to leave the room, but because you understand your boss as a person, you might say, “He’s coming, let’s be patient.” Likewise, Jesus is coming again. You encourage the others to be patient.

2. Suppose you and a few other acquaintances are waiting for a friend of yours to meet for dinner at a restaurant. Well after the expected arrival time, he/she is still a “no show.” Everyone else is hungry and wants to go on in and eat. You decide to be patient and wait since you know your friend. You are in a position to make a better judgment than one of the others with you, for example, who doesn’t know your friend. That person might say, “I guess they're not coming.” He/she loses patience and argues to go on in and eat. People that don't know Christ will claim that he is not coming.

3. Lastly, you’re walking your dog in the park, and you need to go inside the pavilion for a minute, but your dog is not allowed to enter (he is a dog). You tell him “I’ll be right back,” but he still gets frantic as you attempt to walk away. You go on in anyway and then return to find that your dog is nowhere in sight! He was not capable of understanding that you’d come back soon. It would be like an ant trying to understand the Internet.