Anticipation is a great motivator and will help you plow through something you don’t really want to do. 

Though sometimes anticipation can make time seem to go really fast because you are so focussed on it, usually anticipation makes time seem to go very slowly.

It all depends on what you have to do before you get to what you are anticipating.

As a kid, I remember Christmas morning being something I anticipated for weeks in advance. But let me tell you, Christmas Eve seemed to last forever, like time was standing still.

The word itself reminds me of a Carly Simon hit song from 1971. The chorus went like this: “Anticipation is making me late, it’s keeping me waiting.”

It’s like that for me today. 

I’m anticipating going for my first mountain bike ride of the year at my local mountain bike club. 

But before I get there, before I even make sure my tires are pumped and my gears are shifting smoothly, I have to get a few things done, including finishing writing this blog post. 

While I’m sitting in my family room, staring at my iPad, with a keyboard on my lap, I’m really visualizing the course out at the farm.

It looks so different depending on when you ride. Early in the spring when the leaves are still not fully developed, it is brighter and you can see more of the terrain around the path.

In a week or two, the leaves will provide shade to ride under and the path will appear to be all that is highlighted. 

Later in the fall, with brown leaves all around, it will be difficult to even see the path underneath.

With our new social isolation measures, there will be rules to follow, even though most of the time when I bike, though there are over 1000 members, I rarely come across other bikers. And when I do, it is only for a flash, as I glide past them or they whisk by me. 

As long as the trees can’t get COVID, I will be safe from potentially getting the virus on the mountain biking trails. It’s just getting to them that’s the issue. 

And the more I think about riding, the more I anticipate it and that is making me late, keeping me waiting.

As painful as it might be for me right now, if we never anticipated anything, we wouldn’t make plans. We wouldn’t get excited about what is coming up. We wouldn’t dream about what is to come. 

When I was a youth pastor and my junior high girls were anticipating a week at summer camp, or a weekend retreat, they would jump up and down wth big grins on their faces, saying things like, “just 6 more sleeps!”

Anticipation is a good thing. Sometimes we think it’s killing us but it really keeps us going. It motivates us like it is motivating me to finish writing this post.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think we anticipate being with God in heaven all that much. If we did we would have a very different outlook and response to the world around us. We would be less caught up in solving the issues of the day and more concerned with how to best leverage the present circumstances to bring about Christ’s return and our eternity in heaven. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How would anticipating being in heaven change your present mindset and actions during this time? Leave your comments and questions below.  

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