Watching for the Lord

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 29, 1873

Watching for the Lord.

Little Fanny was reading in her Testament; and this was the verse she read: “Watch, therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.”

“I wonder what it means,” she thought. “I suppose he will come down through the sky; for mother says he lives up above it. And, oh! I know why the sky looks so bright over the meeting-house every evening. Those are the gates God is painting to come through by-and-by. Perhaps, if I watch close, I shall see him first of anybody; for I don’t believe many people are watching; they don’t act as if they were; and I am sure I never thought of it before; but I will watch now every day. I guess he will come at sunset: that is the time it looks so beautiful.”

She turned with new pleasure to her verse, reading it over and over till she had learned it.

“Fanny, Fanny!” called her mother’s voice.

“Oh, dear!” thought Fanny: “I can’t watch down in the kitchen; for I can only see a little speck of sky up over Mr. Thacher’s house; and I don’t believe he will come there. I guess, if I tell mother I’m watching for the Lord, she will let me stay.”

But just then Fanny thought of her yesterday’s verse—“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ;” and Fanny was trying to do all that Christ commanded her through his word. She couldn’t see how she could be helping her mother down in that dark kitchen, and watching at the same time. But she thought, “Perhaps he won’t come when he wants me to be helping mother. Perhaps he don’t expect me to watch all the time; for I don’t see how I can; and he would not tell me to do anything that I couldn’t.” So down she ran to wipe dishes, to dust, run errands, and help her mother in every way she could.

There were a great many burdens to bear that day, it seemed to her. Though she tried very hard to do both her duties, she couldn’t see how they could be made to work together.

When her mother did not need her, she would run up to her little room, and, sitting at the window, watch and watch until she was summoned back again. So the forenoon passed. After dinner, the baby must be put to sleep. Back and forth, back and forth, across the floor, Fanny drew him in his little carriage, till her cheeks were flushed and her feet were tired; still he wouldn’t go to sleep; and his great, round eyes followed her wide open. She was almost discouraged; but she kept saying over to herself, “Bear ye one another’s burdens,” till she almost forgot her other verse about watching.

At last, baby’s eyelids began to droop; and Fanny walked slower, and hummed her tune more softly, thinking her work almost done. She was drawing the carriage close to the window where she could see the little streak of blue sky. Just as baby was almost asleep, she saw such a beautiful snowy cloud, that she thought surely it must be there the Lord was coming. Forgetful of baby and everything else, she dropped the handle of the carriage to look. Baby, waking, began to cry; and she had all her work to do over again.

Back and forth, back and forth, she went again, trying to be patient, and keeping her eye on the cloud till it floated away over the roof. Back and forth, back and forth, she went again and again. At last, baby was sound asleep; and her mother said she might have the rest of the day for her own amusement.

How Fanny’s face lighted! But instead of going out to play, as her mother expected, she went up again to her room, and sat down at the window. She grew more and more certain that this was the very day that the Lord was coming; for she felt very sure she had never seen so lovely a blue sky, and so many soft, feathery clouds. “Oh, what a beautiful road he is making!” she thought.

“Fanny Chessman, what are you watching?” shouted brother Edward from the yard. “You have been sitting there, I don’t know how long; and you look as if you were going right up into the sky.”

“O Eddie, I’m watching for the Lord!” she cried, almost falling out of the window in her enthusiasm. “He’s got his path most ready; I know he has. Just look! Did you ever see the sky so lovely with all those little clouds? I shouldn’t wonder if he should come this very day.”

“What in the world do you mean?” asked Eddie, in amazement. “Have you turned an Adventist?”

“Oh! I don’t believe you have seen the verse. I never noticed it till this morning. It is, ‘Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.’ I’m going to watch now. I never thought of it before.”

“Mother,” said Eddie, walking into the kitchen, “don’t you believe Fanny is sitting up in the window; and she says she is watching for the Lord.”

“What?” said his mother, looking at him with astonished face.

“Why, she expects to see him come right down out of the clouds to-day.”

Mrs. Chessman went to find Fanny, wondering what kind of an idea she had taken into her head.

“O mother!” cried Fanny, excitedly, “see! don’t you suppose that is the path of the Lord?”

“What has made you think of that, my little girl?”

“Why, my verse this morning was, ‘Watch, therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.’ I’m going to watch now. I never thought of it before.”

“Did you think that meant you must sit by the window and watch the sky?”

“Why, yes, mother. Don’t you suppose he will come down through the sky? I don’t see where else he can come from. You know, you said he lived up above it?”

“By-and-by,” said Mrs. Chessman, “those people who are alive will see him coming in the clouds of heaven, and all his holy angels with him, to judge the world. As your verse says, we know not the hour when he will come; and it will probably not be a great many years; but God does not require us to sit and watch the sky all that time.”

“What does it mean, then?” asked Fanny, with a troubled look.

“He will come soon; and we must watch for him, not by trying to see him, but we must watch our hearts and lives to see if anything is there that will displease him when he comes. We must watch all those around us to see if we can help any to prepare for him; to see if there are any burdens we can bear for any.”

“I tried to bear your burdens, mother, when I went down into that dark kitchen, when I wanted to be watching for the Lord. Was I watching for him then?”

“Yes, more than when you were sitting here by the window.”

So Fanny found that her two duties could be made to work together.

“But, mother,” she said after a moment’s thought, “don’t you think the sky is more beautiful to-day than it ever was before?”

“It is very beautiful,” replied her mother; “but not more so than I have seen it a great many times. God doesn’t save all the beauty for himself to grace his coming; he showers it all around us without stint. You think the sky more beautiful to-day because you have noticed it more. A great many people go through life with scarcely a thought for all the beauty in the sky and on the ground that God has lavished upon us; so they never realize how bountiful he is to us. We ought to observe his works, that we may know how to praise him more; for ‘the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.’”—Sel.