I Can’t Believe It’s Not Kingdom Come (5)
Chapter 5 of the crime comedy from Chris Well. When the world fails to end on schedule, the mob is in no mood to discuss End-Times theology...
You can listen to the author commentary for this chapter here. (Don’t worry, no spoilers!)
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME will be serialized every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on Substack. Links emailed out once a week in our weekly Monster Complex™ newsletter!
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME
It’s not the end of the world—which could be a problem…
- 5 -
Why did I kill Reverend Daniel Glory? Ask my family. Really, all this trouble is their fault. I would never have killed Reverend Glory if not for them.
I remember when I first sat the family down and told them there were going to have to be some changes. With the Rapture coming in so many weeks, we needed to reprioritize. But were they supportive? Of course not.
Take my no-good son, Clint. He wants to be a writer. A writer! Can you imagine it? Sure, he has excellent grades and has won some awards. He even gets published in the local newspaper. But how do you make an honest living out of that?
Now, selling real estate—that’s useful. That’s productive. It’s a trade that affects everybody. If the economy collapsed tomorrow, whoever owns the land owns the world.
But words? What good are they? Nobody needs words. Just give me a newspaper or a copy of U.S. News & World Report or a good detective TV show and I’m fine. You can keep your words.
Before dinner that particular night, the boy asked about money for his SAT tests coming up. It seemed as good a time as any to call a family meeting. Everyone gathered around the dining room table, the daughter with her cell phone unglued from her ear, almost paying attention. I decided to share the good news. “As you have heard, the Lord is coming October 17.”
The boy gave me one of his smart looks. “You don’t really believe that?”
I started sharing about Reverend Daniel Glory’s 117 Reasons Jesus Is Coming Back in 2017. Before I got far, my son jumped into it, picking it apart. “But you can’t pick the time and day!”
“Don’t give lip to your elders, boy,” I said.
“The Bible says nobody can know the time or the hour. The Bible says Jesus doesn’t know the time or the hour. How arrogant you must be to think that you’re smarter than—”
“That’s enough!” I slapped my hand on the table. It hurt. But I wasn’t going to let them know. “This is my story. I don’t need you stepping in here, Clint.” I forced myself to relax, set my elbows on the table. Locked my fingers together. “We have irrefutable proof that we are not going to be here on this world much longer. So some changes are in order.”
The wife suddenly looked alarmed. “Changes? What changes?”
“Well, this test, for example. There is no point in throwing our money away on a future that ain’t coming.”
“Wait.” The boy again. “You’re saying I can’t do the SAT test?”
“I don’t know what the point would be.”
“I need those SAT scores to go to college!”
“I don’t even know what you need college for. You need a real-estate license to go into the family business.” Why couldn’t he get a real-estate license like a normal person?
He stormed out of the room. Punk kid. Never supportive. Always worried about his grades and about getting published. And my wife had the nerve to glare at me. My daughter just snapped her gum.
The family has never been supportive. When I became deacon in the church, they didn’t buy me presents or anything. When I started teaching Sunday school and I would come up with my lesson idea, I would ask my son for help with my research, but he refused to give me the Bible verses I needed. I would say, “I need to find some verses that teach such and such,” and he had the nerve to tell me no such verses existed. Look, if I want to preach on the importance of washing your car—
Ahem. Anyway, there you have it. The family was never supportive.
That was why I needed a boat. A yacht, a schooner, whatever—something to take out on the water. Anything to rescue me from the cares of the world.
When our Lord Jesus needed time to be alone, He would take a boat out on the lake. Sometimes He would fish, sometimes He would sit and think.
I needed that. A refuge from this world. A refuge from all my cares, from all my worries. A boat to make me feel like I had it all under control.
When the kids were younger, we’d take long Sunday drives after church, go out to the big lots where they sold boats. Spent hours just looking at those magnificent creations, propped up, sitting on trailers and mounts, in all their glory.
The kids’d get bored, sure. And Marge had to work hard to keep the grin on her face. That’s when the boy started his habit of reading in the car; eventually, we never went anywhere he didn’t have at least one book on him.
But none of that mattered when we were in the lot. Looking at the boats. Dreaming. Dreaming of my chance to escape. To get out on the water like our Lord and just be away from it all, from all the people asking for loaves and fishes and healing.
A chance to get away.
That’s what the boat represented to me.
For years, I would dream and plan and wait. It was okay because there was always a “someday” waiting for me, you know.
But when I heard that Jesus was coming back, I knew that “someday” was about to pass me by. I couldn’t enjoy Eternity if I didn’t have a boat.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY:
The book listed in this chapter, 117 Reasons Jesus is Coming in 2017, is a riff on the real-life book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988. Seriously, that was a book that was written and published. (And, in case you were wondering: No, the Rapture did not happen in 1988.)
There are 70 chapters for I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT KINGDOM COME. My plan is to post a chapter every Thursday and Saturday on Substack.
If you can’t wait to see how it turns out, you can actually read the whole eBook (as TRIBULATION HOUSE: RELOADED) on Wattpad.
Find Chris Well online: