I’m growing weary of the prognosticators who are claiming that they just know with all out certainty that doomsday is going to fall on May 21, 2011.

But guess what? If the second coming of Christ were tomorrow, how WOULD we feel about that.]?

One friend told me that he’d feel cheated. He doesn’t feel like he’s finished with life and has much to accomplish in his young life.

My wife had a great line: “The world will end on the 21st? Darn, the Batchelorette starts on the 23rd!”

But, more seriously, life can turn on a dime. One could get diagnosed with pancreatic cancer tomorrow or get hit by a bus this afternoon. Or something less tragic could cause us to have to put off (or even away) all those things that we longed for. And those “things” often melt away as being not as important as we thought.

I’ve spent a good deal of time with dying people. They often don’t talk much about their many accomplishments. They often talk about what brought them joy. A held hand, a kind word, the guy who gave them a break on the job or the child that they loved from birth.

What they also talk about is regret. Not about the things that they did, but rather the things they didn’t do, the chances they didn’t take. The person they never told how much they loved them. The daughter they didn’t talk to for years. The fences that went without mending and the relationships that never blossomed into fruition.

What will you hold close to your heart…forever? Who will be important and what will have been your greatest memory?

If you could only have one memory what would it be?

The truth is that Jesus tells us that we don’t know the day or the hour, even those of us who have a terminal illness. We could all be called to our eternal rest at any time.

We often wait until tomorrow to tell others things we shouldn’t hesitate to tell them. We plan to do something that we think will bring us joy, but it often goes unfinished. Our second career, the one we really want to do, is right around the corner, but do we ever have the guts to quit that mind-numbing, dead-end job we’re stuck in?

The truth is that the rapture is every day. We need to live each day without regret and that shouldn’t cause us to worry or fear death, Rather we should ask ourselves how our lives have unfolded before our peers and in God’s presence.

What will we do and how will we spend our final days? Well, how do we spend every day.

Perhaps that’s the message we all need to hear. Time is limited. For all of us.

So while I’m tempted to buy up church buildings of people who believe that the Rapture is coming on the 21st, I’m also thinking that there are better things to do with my time. Kinder things. Hopeful things. Loving things.

Because there are a lot of hands to hold that need someone to love them. Might we be able to find one today and open our heart for someone in need who just needs another heart to join with?

And if I’m wrong, in case of the rapture this blog will only feature the following clip.