640 has never been a significant number to me, but that changed last week.
The drive home from school was filled with the typical “How was your day?”, “Who did you play with and sit with at lunch?”, “Did you have any struggles?” discussions, followed by singing Baby Shark, Herman the Worm, and Mary Did You Know at the top of our lungs.
Somewhere amidst it all, the conversation took the abrupt detour that only a 4 year old with something on her mind can accomplish.
Lucibelle turned to Baker (age 9) and said, “Bubba, in the No-days, mommy and daddy will be a little old but we will still be young.”
Baker, puzzled, looked up from his book, asking, “What are the No-days?”
Lucibelle quickly clarified, “It’s when there’s no more days.”
Baker, again completely befuddled, responded, “Well...I don’t know when that would be!”
Without missing a beat, and with absolute certainty, Lucibelle answered, “640 days.”
“Wow!” Baker began to calculate the date in his head. “That’s less than 2 years!”
I hesitated to ask, but I needed to know. I had so many questions. “So tell me again what happens in the No-days?”
Lucibelle was exasperated, “No more colors. No more days.”
The very simple, very clear, and very confident answer from my preschooler sent my head reeling. I asked one more question, “Lucibelle where are you getting this information?”
Lucibelle sighed. “Myself,” she explained, placing a hand over her chest, “tells it to my mind,” she finished, placing a hand over her forehead as she gazed out the window.
And just as quickly as the discussion began, we were back to Baby Shark. Well, they were.
I, on the other hand, was fighting the urge to make my car race as fast as my mind was. I had some serious googling to do!
Once we were home, the duties of the evening took priority, but 640 was still firmly planted in my mind.
What could she have possibly meant? She spoke with such clarity and conviction.
Of course, like you, the first thing I looked up when I finally got a brief moment of peace that night was the date 640 days from then. That date, by the way, is October 9, 2021.
Aside from being John Lennon’s birthday, that really means nothing to me.
Also, the Bible tells us that no person knows the date or time of Christ’s return...that He will come “like a thief in the night.”
So what did that mean then?
I googled “bible verse 6:40”. Go ahead, you can too.
Or I can save you the trouble and tell you that the first verse that comes up is John 6:40.
For those who insist on KJV:
“And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
The NIV Version says it this way:
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
Or perhaps you prefer The Message translation (verse 39 and 40):
“This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed—not a single detail missed—and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole. This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life. My part is to put them on their feet alive and whole at the completion of time.”
No matter how you spin it...there sure is a connection to the “No-days” here.
It’s also very clear that He wants everyone to know Him and be made whole again IN Him.
The next morning I asked Lucibelle about the No-days. She was clearly tired of explaining.
“It’s just when there’s no more days, Mommy!”
“But why?” I asked. “Why are there no more days?”
“Because Jesus is in our hearts, and we love him very much, and he loves us too!”
I wasn’t immediately certain she’d answered my question, but I left it at that.
As the day wore on, I came to the realization that she had absolutely answered my question.
It’s not about WHEN He is coming. It’s about WHY he is coming. It’s not about knowing the time and date, it’s about knowing Him!!!
We are all called to be the light of love, to end our worry and put our faith in him.
640 the answer.
But are we asking the right question?
I didn’t at first. And if you read back in the story, neither did Baker. Did you?
Did you first ask...when is that?
640 is NOT the answer to how many days we have left.
640 is the answer to what God most desperately wants from us. It’s the answer to our hope. It’s His promise that He WILL return and has set everything in motion as it should be.
As we look around this world that seems to be rapidly disintegrating into absolute darkness, we forget that every answer we need has been given to us. We just need to be asking the right questions.
I need to open my spiritual ears and allow His word within my “self” (hand over my heart) to tell my “mind” (hand over my forehead). I need to hear with childlike ears and believe with a childlike faith.
I’ve not asked Lucibelle about the No-days again except for once more at dinner last Thursday night. I asked Lucibelle to tell Dave about the No-days...why they will happen, and her response is the perfect end to this little story...
“Because Jesus wants it that way.”
