Nov 30, 2008

I Just Want Jesus to Come Back

Jesus, I just want You to come back. Come back to us.

I feel the blow of an unkind word and know that it was spoken in sin and out of the speaker's history of bearing the brunt of other sorts of blows. I shouldn't be spoken to in such a way, yet Jesus shouldn't have been spoken to the ways he was, and he took it silently and meekly. I give up the right to be treated with dignity and consideration, because the One I follow didn't demand such treatment.

Come back. Why have you been gone so long? Come back to us.

Sin has dug its claws into those I know, and torn them. They walk with limps, broken in soul places that should be full of joy. It's all in the spiritual realm, though, and none of it visible on the surface. When it does appear, others just shake their heads and say, "Oh, he has insecurity issues," or, "She needs to grow up a little." But I say it doesn't have to be this way. Saints don't have to be walking wounded; and sin's remnants don't have to control our present or our future. Neither do the injustices we suffered. But this takes You, Jesus. You. You are the only One who is able to both identify and to heal what is veiled to human eyes.

I wish You would come back. Jesus, please come back.

Children in Bangladesh are purposely hurt in order to elicit more sympathy (thus more money) while they beg. Infants are drugged and passed from beggar to beggar.

It won't be right until You come back, Jesus.

Believing women in China often cannot marry, because there are far more female than male Christians. They share the Gospel; they lay down their lives to spread it; they pray for husbands.

We are lonely until You come back. Jesus, won't You come soon?

Relativism hanging on the coat-tails of individualism and tolerance enters the church and feeds on its weakest, newest babes. Sin is tolerated; the great freedom of repentance is not preached; her heel is wounded, wounded.

Jesus, I just want You to come back. Nothing can be finished until You do.

***


Merchant Band sings a song that almost always makes me cry by the ending bridge, which runs something like this:

Lord have mercy, cause it's my only means
to find You here with me, to find You here with me

Life is not right until You split the skies
The Spirit and the Bride cry, "come"
We long for the day when You make all things new
We want to be with You

I can't find this song online, but here's a good substitute: I Can't Wait

1 comment:

Annie Peterson said...

It is right for us to long for the day when He will split the skies...

(And, that song is the first song on Immersed. They have it on napster... :)