I am looking forward to a lot of things in the days ahead with great anticipation. Super fun or exciting things that we are looking forward to in the future make the difficult things in the present much easier to endure, so I think a lot about the future and the plans that I have. A major part of the anticipation is the planning for the future events. I love to plan and strategize about upcoming challenges and adventures.

On May 25th a number of us are leaving on a bicycle trip from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific coast. We are planning the route, the campsites, the equipment, and the food. I have several books written by those who have already done this exact trip and I read some of it each week which increases my anticipation tremendously.

I am going fishing for sockeye salmon and halibut in Alaska this summer, and I can hardly wait. I look at pictures from previous trips of all the fish we caught, I go over my fishing gear trying to think of anything I am forgetting. I have dreams most nights of fishing. I have a goal of learning how to catch halibut out of my drift boat instead of paying $300 for a charter. I am looking so much forward to that cool challenge.

My greatest of all future events in anticipation is being raptured and going to heaven with Jesus with my new glorified body.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

The first thing that will happen is that I will hear a trumpet sound. An amazing and beautiful sound that will come from above. It will be loud, I am sure and will demand immediate attention. The next thing that will happen is this old, tired, worn out, body will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye to be just like the body that Jesus has. Then we will hear a voice, an amazing voice, that will command us, “come up here.” Then we will rise up from the ground and meet in the air, up above where the clouds are, in a huge gang of people, gathered around Jesus, and then off to heaven we go.

I may die before the rapture happens but I anticipate that it is going to be in the next 24 hours. I eagerly await His appearing, I look forward to it every day, I run over the event in my mind with the wildest of imagination. This great anticipation motivates me to pursue godly character growth every day, it keeps me rejoicing and grateful for my salvation provided by Jesus’s death on the cross. Life is good!

Hebrews 9:28
so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.