The commercial below is a great illustration of how we often focus on lesser things in order to avoid considering the more important ones. For every one of us, both the day of our death and the day of our judgment are already set.
Although these two realities are the most certain things in our life, many of us seem to think about or prepare for them less than for just about anything else. Never mind death or judgment; I have to go shopping, or prepare for a meeting, or watch my favorite TV show. Not all these other things are frivolous; many are significant, such as earning a college degree, or getting married.
But whether frivolous or important, they are all secondary and uncertain. Death is certain; it is the one “graduation” we absolutely must prepare for. The world, the flesh, and the devil have a thousand others things with which to distract us, divert us, and throw us off track.
We succumb to these distractions too easily, often maximizing the minimum while minimizing the maximum. Perhaps we do so in order to be anesthetized; perhaps it is that we just prefer short-term, immediately available joys to long-term, future ones.
Enjoy the humor in this commercial, but don’t miss its hidden message. No distraction or earthly focus can change the fact that we are moving toward a moment that is critical to our destiny. Death and judgment do not go away simply because we are laughing now or enjoying a moment of earthly repose. Jesus warns,
Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. … But if a servant says to himself, “My master is delayed in coming,” and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful (Luke 12:35-46).
Distractions, such as temporal chatter about car insurance, can divert us from facing that there are some things we cannot do but, Matthew 19:26 Mark 10:27 & Luke 18:27 all assure us that with God everything is possible.
A minute is enough time for prayer. God might not save the world, from a meteor just because that’s our desire, but it may be long enough to prepare for facing a judgement as we face His judgement for our eternity.
And … He can save the world from anything if He chooses and if our faith has been prepared and strengthened.