Rapture Practice Read Online Free PDF

family to the mission field for a year,” he says. “Wouldn’t that be a fun adventure?”
    Josh and Miriam shout their enthusiastic agreement from the fold-up seat in our station wagon’s way back. I am not sure whether it would be fun or not. I like my school and my friends. I like our house. I like being able to visit Nanny at Christmas and over the summer.
    Dad has been talking about taking us all to the mission field since last year, when he and Mom took a group of students on a ten-day mission trip to Costa Rica. A thought has been floating around in my brain since their return. I’ve been trying to ignore it, much like the socks I’m wearing right now that I can feel but don’t want to look at. Tonight, something about that word I wrote down in my notebook makes this thought finally take the shape of a question and tumbles out of my mouth.
    “What happens to the people who never get to hear about Jesus before they die?” I ask. “Like a tribe in a jungle that missionaries don’t even know about yet?”
    Dad glances in the rearview mirror. “Well, son, we believe they’ll go to hell.”
    “But that’s not fair,” I say.
    “No, it’s not.” Dad sighs in agreement. “It’s not fair that we know about Jesus and don’t go to tell them. That’s why it’s so important for our church to send missionaries to spread the Good News.”
    This is not what I meant at all. Sometimes, Dad has a way of reframing things that confuses me.
    “Do you think maybe the Lord will call you to be a missionary one day, Aaron?”
    I don’t answer right away. I know how proud it would make Dad for me to go into “full-time Christian work.” He wants me to be a missionary, or a music pastor, or a Christian schoolteacher when I grow up.
    “I really want to be an actor.”
    “Well, son, you could be an actor for the Lord,” he says. “Be the English and drama teacher at a Christian school and direct all the plays, or start a Christian drama group and go perform at churches all over the country.”
    This is not the kind of acting I am talking about. I want to be in plays and movies, like Julie Andrews, and live in Hollywood or New York. I let this go and try to get back to the point I was making about unsaved people going to hell.
    “In the sermon tonight, it sounded like if someone is living in a jungle and they don’t hear about Jesus before they die, it was preordained that they go to hell.”
    “Think of it like this, Aaron,” Dad says. “Imagine a big gate that leads into heaven, and on the front side as you walk up, it says ‘Whosoever will may come.’ And on the back of it, after you walk through the gate, it says, ‘Chosen in Christ before the creation of the world.’ ”
    I picture this gate with the signs on each side. I sort of squint as I try to understand this. “So, everyone has a choice to walk through the door of salvation, but God knows ahead of time who will make that choice?” I feel like I’m doing a brainteaser from the big book my teacher keeps on the shelves by the beanbag in our classroom.
    “That’s right!” Dad says.
    “So, God knows what choice everyone is going to eventually make before they make it?” I ask.
    “Yes, honey. Our God is omniscient,” Mom says with a smile. “He knows every time a sparrow falls from the sky. He can hear your every thought.”
    “But that means God already knows who is getting into heaven and who isn’t.”
    Dad nodded. “Yes, son, he does.”
    “So, why even give us a choice in the first place?” I ask. “Why the big test?”
    “God wants us to make a
decision
to love him,” Dad says. “It’s why he gave Adam and Eve free will in the Garden of Eden. Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve believed the serpent’s lie and disobeyed God. That’s why we are all born sinners. We have to make the choice to repent and believe in Jesus.”
    Mom nods her head in agreement. “Sugar, God doesn’t want to be worshipped by robots.”
    I am