Land of the Living
One day, God will create a new heaven and a new earth. We are told that "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Rev 21:4). With all that we struggle through every day, this is a comforting hope for the future.
But we cannot always survive on hope for the future. Sometimes, we have to look around ourselves and say, "What about this current suffering? What is God's purpose here?" God is not the big man that you meet at the end of your life, who looks back over your past to tell you if you're on the "naughty" or "nice" list. He lives and experiences every moment with you.
It is for this reason that we have hope for this life as well as for the next one. We are reminded in Psalm 27:13, "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." This is a promise that we must hold on to and claim now. We don't have to wait for eternity, God controls this world as well. Even here, Satan has only a shadow of His power.
But the goodness of the Lord will not always fold out exactly as we had planned. It will not always come the instant we want it to, the way that we want it to, for the reasons we want it to. It is here that we will learn patience and perseverance, and one day realize God's purpose in all that we have done and seen. As David reminds himself in the next verse of his Psalm, "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
This is our call, we need not wait till the next life to be changed people and to see the beauty of the Gospel unfold before us. It can happen each day when we chose to awake and stand out, following the path of God rather than the way of the world. We will be following him faithfully until one day we will freeze in our steps, suddenly overcome by the goodness of the Lord. Because not only in heaven, but also here on Earth, he reigns.
But we cannot always survive on hope for the future. Sometimes, we have to look around ourselves and say, "What about this current suffering? What is God's purpose here?" God is not the big man that you meet at the end of your life, who looks back over your past to tell you if you're on the "naughty" or "nice" list. He lives and experiences every moment with you.
It is for this reason that we have hope for this life as well as for the next one. We are reminded in Psalm 27:13, "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." This is a promise that we must hold on to and claim now. We don't have to wait for eternity, God controls this world as well. Even here, Satan has only a shadow of His power.
But the goodness of the Lord will not always fold out exactly as we had planned. It will not always come the instant we want it to, the way that we want it to, for the reasons we want it to. It is here that we will learn patience and perseverance, and one day realize God's purpose in all that we have done and seen. As David reminds himself in the next verse of his Psalm, "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
This is our call, we need not wait till the next life to be changed people and to see the beauty of the Gospel unfold before us. It can happen each day when we chose to awake and stand out, following the path of God rather than the way of the world. We will be following him faithfully until one day we will freeze in our steps, suddenly overcome by the goodness of the Lord. Because not only in heaven, but also here on Earth, he reigns.
Comments
Post a Comment