CHAPTER 1

"You Do the Trusting;I'll Do the Taking"

When Will He Come?

Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me.... I will come back and take you to be with me.

John 14:1, 3

Parenting is packed with challenges. Who amongus has answers to the questions children ask?

"Why can't I have another puppy?"

"But you got married when you were eighteen. Why can't I?"

"Daddy, what is Viagra?"

Such questions would cause a sage to stammer. They pale,however, compared to one a child asks on a trip. In a comprehensivesurvey conducted by Lucado and Friends (I interviewed acouple of people in the hallway), I determined the most dreadedquestion in parentdom. What is the single query hated most bymoms and dads? It's the one posed by the five-year-old on the trip,"How much farther?"

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Give us the dilemmas of geometry and sexuality; just don'tmake a parent answer the question, "How much farther?"

It's an impossible question. How do you speak of time and distanceto someone who doesn't understand time and distance? Thenovice parent assumes the facts will suffice, "Two hundred andfifty miles." But what do miles mean to a pre-K kid? Nothing! Youmight as well have spoken Yiddish! So the child asks, "What is twohundred and fifty miles?" At this point you're tempted to get technicaland explain that one mile equals 5,280 feet, so two hundredand fifty miles equals one million three hundred thousand feet.But four words into the sentence, and the child tunes you out. Hesits quietly until you are quiet and then asks, "How much farther?"

The world of a youngster is delightfully free of mile markersand alarm clocks. You can speak of minutes and kilometers, but achild has no hooks for those hats. So what do you do? Most parentsget creative. When our girls were toddlers, they loved to watchThe Little Mermaid. So Denalyn and I used the movie as an economyof scale. "About as long as it takes you to watch The Little Mermaidthree times."

And for a few minutes that seemed to help. But sooner or later,they ask again. And sooner or later, we say what all parents eventuallysay, "Just trust me. You enjoy the trip and don't worry aboutthe details. I'll make sure we get home OK."

And we mean it. We don't want our kids to sweat the details.So we make a deal with them, "We'll do the taking. You do thetrusting."

Sound familiar? It might. Jesus has said the same to us. Justprior to his crucifixion, he told his disciples that he would be leavingthem. "Where I am going you cannot follow now, but you willfollow later" (John 13:36).

Such a statement was bound to stir some questions. Peterspoke for the others and asked, "Lord, why can't I follow younow?" (v. 37).

See if Jesus' reply doesn't reflect the tenderness of a parent toa child: "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trustin me. There are many rooms in my Father's house; I would nottell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a placefor you.... I will come back and take you to be with me so thatyou may be where I am going" (John 14:1–3).

Reduce the paragraph to a sentence and it might read: "Youdo the trusting and I'll do the taking." A healthy reminder whenit comes to anticipating the return of Christ. For many, the verbtrust is not easily associated with his coming.

Our pre-K minds are ill-equipped to handle the thoughts ofeternity. When it comes to a world with no boundaries of spaceand time, we don't have the hooks for those hats. Consequently,our Lord takes the posture of a parent, "You do the trusting andI'll do the taking." This is precisely his message in these warmwords of John 14. Let's ponder them for a bit.

All of his words can be reduced to two: Trust me. "Don't letyour hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me" (v. 1).

Don't be troubled by the return of Christ. Don't be anxiousabout things you cannot comprehend. Issues like the millenniumand the Antichrist are intended to challenge and stretch us, butnot overwhelm and certainly not divide us. For the Christian, thereturn of Christ is not a riddle to be solved or a code to be broken,but rather a day to be anticipated.

Jesus wants us to trust him. He doesn't want us to be troubled,so he reassures us with these truths.

I have ample space for you. "There are many rooms inmy Father's house" (v. 2). Why does Jesus refer to "many rooms"?Why does our Master make a point of mentioning the size of thehouse? You can answer that question as you think of the manytimes in life you've heard the opposite. Haven't there been occasionswhen you've been told: "We have no room for you here"?

Have you heard it in the workplace? "Sorry, I don't have roomfor you in my business."

Have you heard it in sports? "We don't have room for you onthis team."

From someone you love? "I don't have room for you in myheart."

From a bigot? "We don't have room for your type in here."

Most sadly, have you heard it from a church? "You've made toomany mistakes. We don't have room for you here."

Some of the saddest words on earth are: "We don't have roomfor you."

Jesus knew the sound of those words. He was still in Mary'swomb when the innkeeper said, "We don't have room for you."

When the residents of his hometown tried to stone him, werethey not saying the same? "We don't have room for prophets inthis town."

When the religious leaders accused him of blasphemy, weren'tthey shunning him? "We don't...