Rapture Practice

by Aaron Hartzler

  “These are Top-Siders,” I say. “You don’t wear socks with boat shoes.”

  I smile as I hurry to pick up my Bible from the coffee table, trying to mask the fear in the pit of my stomach. If I can get to the car fast enough, maybe Dad won’t insist on ruining my perfectly planned Sunday night outfit.

  “Well, we’re headed to church, son, so go put your socks on.”

  Too late.

  “Dad.” He turns to look at me when I say his name. I am struggling to keep my voice from betraying my complete dismay. “You don’t wear socks with Top-Siders. It isn’t stylish. It’s dorky.”

  A look of genuine confusion passes over his face. “Aaron, it looks dorky not to have your socks on,” he says. “We’re going to worship the Lord. Go do it right now or we’re going to be late.”

  I cannot believe this is happening. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll change shoes.”

  As I head back up to my room, Dad’s voice stops me.

  “Don’t change shoes,” he says. “We don’t have time. Just grab some socks and put them on in the car on the way.”

  My frustration spills over. “But, Dad! No one wears socks with boat shoes.” I feel tears welling up in my eyes. Mom appears from the kitchen with her purse, and my youngest brother.

  “What’s the problem?” she asks.

  “I asked Aaron to put on his socks, and he’s being disobedient.”

  “Honey, we wear socks to church,” Mom says. “Obey your dad. Hurry so we aren’t late.”

  She heads out the door with Caleb and calls Miriam and Josh to the car from their football game in the front yard.

  “I’m not wearing these shoes with socks,” I say. “It’s not cool.”

  “Son, you’re more concerned with following the fashion trends of a sinful world than you are with obeying your father.”

  This seems like a gross mischaracterization of the situation to me. It makes me angry.

  “It’s just socks,” I try to reason, but it comes out as more of a yell.

  Dad doesn’t yell back. He only shakes his head, crestfallen.

  “Aaron, it isn’t just socks. It’s rebellion. This is something that I have asked you to do, and you’re more worried about what other people think of your outward appearance than you are about what God thinks of your heart.”

  I feel like my head will explode. How did this happen? One minute I’m on my way out the door to church wearing something I feel good about. The next minute I’m arguing with my dad about being rebellious. Over socks?

  “Dad, just because I don’t want to wear socks with my boat shoes doesn’t mean that I’m being rebellious.” I’m not wearing a tie, but there’s a knot at my throat, one on the inside that makes it hard to speak.

  “Aaron, God gave me the responsibility of training you. Your job is to obey me. Ephesians says honoring your father and mother is the ‘first commandment with promise.’ You know the verse. What are the promises?”

  I sigh. “That things will go well with me, and that my days will be long upon the earth,” I say from memory.

  Dad nods. “When I ask you to do something and you disobey and talk back, you’re being rebellious. You’re being like Satan. Before God cast him out of heaven, he was Lucifer, the angel of light who said ‘I will be like the Most High.’ You’re saying you’ll decide what’s best for you.”

  “Dad,” I plead as the tears run down my face. “I am not acting like Lucifer. I will change shoes. Please don’t make me wear socks with my Top-Siders.”

  “Son, I want you to prove that you can submit to me by wearing socks with those shoes. It won’t kill you. I promise.”

  “But, Dad—” I slump down on one of the stairs that leads to my bedroom.

  Dad doesn’t raise his voice. I feel his hand on my shoulder. His words are soft and full of compassion.

  “Son, I need your eyes.”

  I know better than to ignore this request. I look into Dad’s eyes.

  “I love you very much, Aaron, but I want you to go upstairs and get some socks right now, or when we get to church, I’m going to take you downstairs to the boiler room and blister your bottom.”

  I don’t want to be spanked, especially not at church.

  I walk up the stairs and get the socks.

  The music pastor is already leading the opening hymn as we walk into the auditorium and take our place in a pew near the front on the right. I’m relieved we don’t have to talk to anybody before the service but can’t help feeling the eyes of the congregation on my ankles as we traipse down the aisle. I know that this is absurd; none of my friends care that much about clothes. That’s the thing that makes me so upset when Dad says I’m worried more about what other people think than about what God thinks. It’s not that I’m worried about what other people think. I just like it. I like feeling well dressed. I like it when my clothes look like the outfits on the guys in the JCPenney catalog.

  Dad is the one who taught me we should dress up for church because it honors the Lord, but when he quotes that verse about God looking at our hearts instead of our outward appearance, I feel like he’s not making sense. If God doesn’t care about what we look like on the outside, then who am I really wearing socks for, besides Dad? I can’t imagine that God, the creator of the universe, cares much about my socks either way.

  Once we’re done singing hymns and the sermon is about to start, relief washes over me. I shove my feet under the pew. I’m relieved no one else can see my socks from here, but I still shove my feet under the pew so I can’t see them, either. Looking at the socks in my boat shoes makes me feel angry all over again, and I don’t like feeling angry.

  The assistant pastor of our church is preaching tonight. When he came to our church with his family a couple of years ago, Mom explained that he was a Messianic Jew. “Pastor Schwartz is Jewish by birth, but he’s accepted Jesus as his Messiah.”

  Last year, Mom and Mrs. Schwartz hosted a Passover dinner at our house. We read the story of the first Passover, in Exodus, and I was especially glad we didn’t have to smear any sacrificial blood on the front door trim to keep the angel of death from killing the firstborn son—namely, me. Then we ate a strange meal of hard-boiled eggs and bitter herbs and tears (parsley dipped in salt water) while Pastor Schwartz and Dad read Old Testament verses of Hebrew prophecy and explained that the prophecy symbolized by the food item we were eating was fulfilled in Jesus, who was the true Messiah.

  Tonight, I listen to Pastor Schwartz’s sermon for a couple of minutes because I have to take a few notes in a half-size, three-ring blue canvas binder Dad gave me when I was in first grade. He calls it my “Life Notebook,” and it has half-sheet notebook paper and dividers in it. One of the dividers is labeled QUIET TIME. I’m supposed to read the Bible every day and then write down what truth I found in that passage and how God used it to speak to my heart.

  Another tab is labeled SERMON NOTES, and I’m supposed to take notes on what the speaker is preaching about. I write down several of the first things Pastor Schwartz says. He’s talking about how God knew he would have to send Jesus to die for our sins before he ever created the universe, and that each one of us who is born again was “preordained” to be saved. This means God knows whether or not we will ask Jesus to be our savior long before we are born. The assistant pastor is using this word preordain a lot, so I write it down.

  After a while, I get bored and start drawing wedding dresses.

  I always think about weddings in this church auditorium, mainly because I’ve been to so many of them here. Dad performs lots of ceremonies, and Mom is often asked to sing. I love weddings, especially the bridal gowns. Tonight, I draw several dresses with sweetheart necklines, probably a little lower than Mom would think is modest. The one I like best has a princess waistline and a full train, with Camelot sleeves. I’ve learned the different names for these styles from reading the descriptions of the dresses in the bridal section of the JCPenney catalog. Camelot sleeves have been very popular
lately at our church.

  Finally, the sermon is wrapping up, and I decide to jot down a couple more points in case Dad wants to see my notes later. The assistant pastor is talking about how to handle it when Satan tempts us to doubt God’s word. He reads the story in the Gospel of Mark about the father who brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus for healing. Jesus tells the father that all he must do for his son to be healed is believe. The father says to Jesus, “I believe; help thou my unbelief.”

  I like that Bible verse. The man seems to be saying, “I believe close to ninety percent of the time, but every once in a while I have these questions, these little things that don’t make sense,” and he’s asking Jesus for help with that tiny ten percent.

  After the closing hymn, the assistant pastor encourages us to be there next Sunday night, when a missionary family from New Guinea will talk about their work in the bush.

  My family will be back again before next Sunday night. On Wednesday night, my parents will come for the weekly prayer meeting. The choir practices that night, too, and the kids who aren’t old enough for youth group yet go to special group meetings. The girls attend Pioneer Girls, and I join the rest of the guys in Boys’ Brigade. Boys’ Brigade is like a Christian version of Boy Scouts. In addition to tying knots, we memorize Bible verses each week to earn special pins and badges for our uniforms. My dentist leads the Brigade. He’s very jolly, without being fat, and patient as we learn to tie knots and make things out of wood. Last week, I learned how to change a tire.

  After the final prayer, I tell Mom that I’m going to the bathroom and will meet the family at the car. I head straight for the parking lot. At least no one will notice my dorky socks in the car.

  It’s a long wait. Dad and Mom always have lots of people to talk to after the services at church. Everybody loves my parents. People are always asking both of them to speak at various events or Bible studies and asking Dad’s advice about things. Finally, Mom and Dad make it to the car, too.

  On the way home, Dad talks about the missionary family who will be at church next Sunday. He knows them and has asked them to speak at one of his classes at the Bible college while they are in Kansas City this week.

  “I’d love to take our 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 quiet for a minute as we pass a big movie theater. Families are walking out of the building toward their cars, and I wonder which movie they saw. If I had a choice, I’d go to the movies on Sunday night instead of church. I’ll bet no one cares whether you wear socks at the theater.

  A pang of guilt shoots through my stomach for even thinking that, but I can’t help it. The whole thing about God knowing exactly what will happen but giving humans a choice to believe in Him—even though he knows many won’t, or worse, can’t because no one has told them about Jesus—it seems like a bad plan. Like socks with boat shoes.

  Dad’s question about whether I want to be a missionary feels so silly now. If God already knows which people will get into heaven and which people he’ll send to hell, then being a missionary seems like a waste of time. The people who are going to be saved are going to get into heaven whether I am the person who tells them about Jesus or not, right?

  Has God created a bunch of people knowing He’ll have to send them to hell to burn in torment for all of eternity? That would just make God a jerk. Surely, that can’t be right. Can it?

  My head feels foggy. I take a deep breath and say a silent prayer. God, help me understand.

  “Tell me again,” I say. “How do we know for sure that the Bible is true?”

  Without hesitation, Mom and Dad reply instantly as one voice: “Because it says it is.”

  Their answer feels like sand slipping through my fingers. My stomach leaps the way it does on the first drop of the Orient Express at Worlds of Fun.

  “Are you okay, Aaron?”

  Dad is looking at me in the rearview mirror. I realize I am frowning, and quickly relax my face as I did when I was a little boy playing dead.

  Don’t move a muscle.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, and turn away from his gaze to look out the window
.

  But I am not fine. I simply don’t know what else to say. As our car navigates a busy intersection, I have the sudden urge to double-check to make sure my father is still in the front seat, driving. When I see him there, it does not quiet the racing of my heart, or soothe the panic in my stomach, or calm this fear I cannot shake—that no one is at the wheel; that at any moment we might spin wildly out of control.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Boys and girls, let’s get things started off with a song!”

  It’s Thursday afternoon following sock Sunday. Once more Mom greets each kid who comes for Good News Club with a hug and a smile. Once more we sing “Countdown!” Once more I show the other kids how to jump up in the air.

  I can’t jump as high as I did when I was younger, because I’m taller now and I can touch the ceiling of the family room, but today it’s not my height stopping me. Something else is different, too. I try to figure out what it is as we finish the song, and Mom directs us all in reading aloud the Bible verse printed in the back of the rocket ship songbook: “John 14:3: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

  I glance over at Randy, who smiles at me as we sit back down.

  A few weeks before, Dad talked about Randy from the pulpit during one of the seminars he teaches for parents and Christian schoolteachers about how to raise godly children. He explained to the congregation that Mom is a missionary right here in our family room, spreading the Good News around the neighborhood. Dad said how sad it was that when Randy first came to our house, he had never heard the name of Jesus.

  “That poor boy owns every satanic toy you can buy, but he doesn’t have a Bible,” Dad said with a sad shake of his head. “Randy is one of our American heathens.”

  When Dad said the word heathens, I got this image of Randy with a bone through his nose, wearing a grass skirt while dancing around a fire in the jungle, and a thought went through my head:

  What if Randy isn’t preordained?