Or...
Life is hard and softens our hearts. Age diminishes us and equips us with wisdom. Disease ravages us and empowers us to embrace hope. Then we die and pass into eternity.
What happens to us, all of us, in the course of a lifetime is simply a variation on the same theme. What sets apart those not beaten from those that are? It is what that "lifetime process" produces in us.
I've been reminded recently, we are fragile and our bodies will eventually fail--some sooner than others, but for all of us life ends in one final breath. The ability to see our sojourn as a prelude to "something more" is the key to empowering us to embrace all we experience in "time" with wonder; while anticipating what we glimpse of eternity with hope.
Yes, I'm talking about faith. A specific "effective-faith" we are given instruction about in the Scriptures; the Second letter to the church in Corinth, written by the Apostle Paul (5.1-5):
"For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. 4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit."
Over the past year I've invested time in some weary people...all filled with hope. They are fragile over-comers. Their lives are a tapestry illustrating God's grace, love, presence and power. Paul acknowleges this too later in chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians 5.17-19, 21...
"17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them...21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ."
Thanks be to God for our blessed hope in Jesus Messiah! I'm ready. Are you?
Maranatha.
Live it well...bN tGit
