As I walked into my office this morning and set up my computer I was faced with a little blue circle on my dock jumping up and down like a 3rd grader that knew the answer. When I checked to see what my computer was wanting to inform me of I realized that Mountain Lion was in need of an update. So, I clicked to update and then it informed me that I was going to have to restart my computer (I HATE restarting my computer because I am 90% sure I have the only Mac that doesn't have the ability to boast about fast boot times). But, nonetheless if I was going to reap the blessing of having an up to date computer it needed to be done. So I went ahead and clicked to restart and install my update. After a few minutes of installing I returned to my desk, because I knew it would take a while, to find the little blue line almost full and the "estimated time" reading 10 seconds... this lasted for a good 5 minutes. Don't you hate when that happens? If they spend millions of dollars designing a computer you would think that they could make it guess the time correctly! But anyways, as I was sitting at my desk ever watchful of the time in which I could actually get some computer work done today it continued to say "Less than 10 seconds remaining." And then it happened, as I was patiently watching for it to reboot a sound came from my speakers, my heart skipped a beat because it scared me half to death and my computer shot to life.
What does this have to do with Christianity? Paul wrote to a group of Christians and said that they always needed to be ready for the time at which the Christ would come back to judge the world (1 The. 5:1-4, cf. 2 Cor. 5:10). He said that every Christian should be waiting and watching because life's little blue line is always stuck at that "Less than 10 seconds left" point and there's no telling when it will actually get done (1 The. 5:5-6)! He wanted them to know that when it came time for Christ to return, there would be no warning and he didn't want them to be scared to death when that time came. That is one of the reasons why every Christian lives faithful lives throughout their time on earth, because it is as if we are sitting at our desks staring at that little blue line and knowing that there is no telling when the sound will come billowing from our speakers (or the trumpet of God in this case, cf. 1 The. 4:16) and it will all be over.
Are you ready for life to be "rebooted" and have the update that has been promised to every person who has lived faithful to Christ, Heaven eternally? If not it's time to get ready because that little line isn't going to wait on anyone... when it's done, it's done and so will our lives.