Don’t Watch The Clock: Just Be Ready

I don’t know how people cooked in ovens without timers back in the day. When I watch shows set in earlier eras, I’m amazed that someone could put bread or a roast in the oven and just… know.

No digital countdown. No pre-set alert. Just a clock on the wall and a sense of when it was time to pull it out before it burned.

Modern cooking relies heavily on built-in timers. It’s rare to see someone sprinting to the oven, waving smoke out of the air because they lost track of time.

Although…I did that recently with a batch of cookies.

But my wife is a totally different story.

She’s done this for years, and she did it again this week. She was baking cupcakes for a coworker’s birthday. After putting them in the oven, she went into the living room, put on her Beats headphones, and started watching something on her phone.

Several minutes passed. Then, without looking at a clock or setting a timer, she suddenly stood up and walked into the kitchen.

Right as she got there, the oven timer went off.

It’s crazy. She can be in another room, upstairs, even in the garage working out and she just senses when it’s time. When I say, “That’s crazy,” or “That’s insane,” she looks at me like I’m the strange one and says, “You can’t do that? I just get a feeling and know it’s time.”

Her ability to know when something is finished, even without watching the clock, reminds me of a conversation Jesus had with His disciples about His return and the end of the age.

In Matthew 24:36, after describing turmoil, deception, and tribulation, Jesus says something that has both comforted and frustrated believers for centuries:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

That single sentence has sparked countless interpretations and predictions. Some have tried to tie it to figures like Antiochus Epiphanes. Others to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Others to future geopolitical events. Date-setting has been a recurring hobby of Christians across the centuries.

But Jesus’ point seems clear: the exact timing is not for us to calculate.

He goes on to say it will be like the days of Noah. People will be eating, drinking, marrying, living ordinary life, and then suddenly it will happen. Some will be taken; others will remain.

And His repeated instruction is simple:

Keep watch. 

Be ready.

Many of us spend an incredible amount of time trying to figure out when Jesus will return. We chart timelines. We analyze headlines. We connect dots.

But Jesus says plainly: no one knows the day or the hour.

If I could paraphrase Him, it might sound like this: “No one knows when I’m coming back, so stop trying to predict it. Just be ready.”

Have your heart in order. 

Surrender your life to Him. 

Receive His grace, forgiveness, and salvation. 

Live in obedience and faith today.

Don’t wait for a countdown clock.

Here’s the real question: If He returned tonight, would you be ready? Or would you be scrambling? Don’t live spiritually distracted. Settle it now.

And maybe readiness isn’t about watching a timer at all.

Maybe it’s about being so in tune with Jesus now, so aligned with His voice, so surrendered in your heart that when the moment comes, you simply rise and go with Him. Not because you calculated the hour, but because you’ve been walking with Him all along.

Like someone who just knows when it’s time to pull the cupcakes out of the oven.

Anyway, I was just thinking…