I had trouble with this idea until the Lord showed me through an experience. I'm sure this is a very familiar scenario since it happened to me at least twice in my life but I didn't get it at first...
In one camp I went to with my family, I was told by my brother to wait for my friend and then go down to the hotel's breakfast together. He said her mother will call my room number.
So I waited... and waited... I was eagerly waiting for the welcome ring of the phone. I was ever ready to go once she called.
It was starting to get late, so I started panicking (not a smart thing to do). I called their phone and let it ring twice; I was afraid of waking them. No answer. So I decided to go down with my other friend. But while waiting for the lift, I went to the door and rang their doorbell twice. "Ding, dong" the lift arrived. No answer. My heart was sinking.
There was another time.
This was the first and only time my mother brought my brother and me to Wild Wild Wet. We wanted to meet our missionary friend from K__ and play with her there. Everything was arranged. We were to meet her at Wild Wild Wet.
So we went first without them. They were supposed to call us when they reached. But when we went there, we found out that we had to keep our things in the locker and every time we opened the locker, we had to pay money to lock it back up. In order to play in the water, we had to keep my mom's phone in the locker.
When we were playing, we constantly thought of the time when our friend will come. So we kept on checking the locker, wasting money.
"This won't do." My mom said after a few futile checks. "The next time is the last time I'll do this."
So we went back to play. After a while, my brother asked again. "Do you think she would have smsed already?" I tried to dissuade them so that I could play a little while longer, and I doubted that she had already done that.
But we went anyway. Our hopes were high as we opened the locker. Expectancy shone through our faces. "Maybe, just maybe" I thought.
But the welcome look of an sms was not to be found. None to tell us when she'll come. None to tell us what's happening now. And worst of all, TIME TO GO HOME! I have to admit, I was a "little" angry with my brother and that Aunty. But I knew I had to forgive them (I did). I was a little child at that time, and of course I was disappointed. So disappointed, I think my eyes were blurry and my mouth was salty. Though I had to make sure no drops trickled down my already wet cheeks. (By the way, that was the last time I ever went to Wild Wild Wet)
It was not until later that we found out why our friend couldn't come or contact us. Her husband was sick that day and it turned out the be dysentery (or was it cholera?).
I'm sure everyone of us had that circumstance happen to us. Someone we wait and prepared, ever ready to appear didn't come. And that bitter, soury disappointment that followed. But now I finally understand the greater store in it for me: to teach me what it means to "trim my lamp and be ready".
This was a very familiar phrase to me as a child. I enjoyed singing this hymn as a family and especially enjoyed crooning the chorus. I also learnt that parable from our family devotions and from Sunday school and from weekly gospel meetings.
But what the phrase actually meant, what the hymn actually meant, what the parable actually meant, I never quite could understand. But now I do. The hope and expectancy, the excitement, the longing, the constant nagging in your mind, these all I now know is part of it. (Perhaps the Prodigal Son's father also looked for his son in this manner?) But unlike what happened to me, I know that my waiting for my Lord's coming is not in vain. Isn't it great that we won't be disappointed. With assurance we can wait.
Trim your lamp and be ready. For the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, you shall not know the hour when he shall come. (Just a string of thoughts alluding to verses in the Bible)
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"
