ANTICIPATION

Anticipation

In 1971 Carly Simon sang about it.  A few years later Heinz Ketchup started using the song in its commercials and continued doing so until the early 80’s.  In that song Ms Simon said, “We can never know about the days to come but we think about them anyway”.  That’s what I did for a whole year.

Last year my sister-in-law, through the company she works for, kindly allowed us to enjoy a condo down on Orange Beach.  We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies walking in there.  The bed was bigger than our bedroom.  The bathroom was bigger than our living room.  It came with a workout room, a heated pool and a hot tub.  You could stand on the balcony and look out over the azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico and walk for miles along the sugar white sandy beaches. What a vacation! The time of the year was just what Keva and I love it was the off season. We were probably the youngest people within 50 miles of the place.  Can you say “Snow Birds”?

Well, I started right then and there planning this year’s trip.  I determined that if I skipped breakfast just one morning a week and saved that $5.00 in a can, we could have at least $250.00 to spend on eating and having a good time.  So I started that long, arduous task of saving money. That doesn’t even sound like fun at all. I sold some scrap iron and put it in the can.  I raked and scraped and the whole while the thoughts of that big ole condo and all the amenities made me smile. But the anticipation was making me wait.

Well 12 months later, 365 long days, 52 weeks of skipping breakfast at the Main Street café, the time came to leave on our trip.  No one believed that I would stay away from home for 5 days.  “What on earth will you do for 5 days” they asked.  “I’m going to eat as much as I want and sleep as much as I want and have no responsibility” I said. So I drove the 4 hours down I-65 to Orange Beach. 

Somewhere in my year of planning and eagerness to make this trip I forgot that my left hip doesn’t do real well when it sits in a little compact car for 4 hours.  So when we arrived I could hardly straighten up and walk.  But I was as good as my word.  Before we even got to the condo we stopped by a really nice seafood place and I ate whatever I wanted.  (As I write these words I think I can still feel the shrimp just down there somewhere past my Adam’s apple).

I ate soooo much I ate too much and couldn’t go to sleep until 5 A.M. the next morning.

The next day wasn’t much better.  Goofing off, over-eating and not sleeping does not put one in a mood of “happy vacation”. 

Keva enjoyed an afternoon of shopping at the big outlet mall and I enjoyed 3 or 4 hours sitting in the parking lot.  How come I didn’t see this coming?

“Oh, let’s go on a boat ride”.  We pooled our money with Kristi and hired a crusty old sea captain who placed us all on a 22’ fishing boat and took us on a 3 hour tour of the Gulf and Inter-costal Waterway.  I was having visions of “Gilligan’s Island”. 

It was cold.  Even though the sun was shining brightly and the seas were friendly, three hours of Gulf wind in your face and the beach sun unhindered by clouds or shade caused my face to resemble something about the color of a lobster. Can I go home now?

I hate vacations!  I’m never going back.  What happened to all the great stuff I dreamed about for the last year?  What about eating all that good food?  What about the great sleep I was going to get in that great big acre wide bed?  It didn’t turn out like I had anticipated. But nothing ever does.  The anticipation is much more enjoyable than the actual event.  Anticipation, bah humbug.  It’s not worth the effort.

But I got to thinking about it.  There is one more vacation that I’m going on soon. It’s going to be better than this last one.  My Lord promised me that in John chapter 14.  He said “I go to prepare a place for you and if I go I will come again and receive you unto myself, so that where I am, there you may be also”. He said that He would pick out the spot.  He would choose the location.  He would get the condo ready. He is even going to choose how I’ll get there and when I’ll leave.  “I know just what you like, Bill.  I’m going to get it ready for you”.   

“But Lord, what if I eat too much from the banquet table?  What if I bask too much in the Son light?  What if my left hip don’t do well walking on streets of gold? Don’t you think I may be anticipating this vacation just a little bit too much”?

I reckon Paul, the great writer of the New Testament had prophetic hearing.  He must have heard or at least anticipated what I was going to say all the way down here in 2011.  He had me pegged.  He heard me complaining and had this to say in I Cor. 2:9.  “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him”.

If Paul could have spoken in the Chilton County dialect it would have sounded something like this: “Don’t sweat it old man, you ain’t never seen nothin’ like the Lord is going to show you.  You ain’t never heard about nothin’ this good. Why heck, you can’t even “anticipate” the good stuff God is getting ready for you.” 

I needed that.  After the vacation from hell I needed to focus on another vacation.  And you know what? I’d bet my John Deere tractor against your long handle hoe that this one won’t let me down.   

‘Cuse me while I sit here and do a little “anticipatin' "