Someday…
I have these 3 thoughts today that I want to tie together.
I am sending out a newsletter today, on this feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. One of the things I love about Ignatius was that he believed the world was soaked with God’s presence.
There is only one Savior, Lord, and King: Jesus. He is the Son of God who lived, died and rose again in glory to sit at the right hand of the Father. He inaugurated the Kingdom of God in His first coming and will someday return and consummate that Kingdom (which is a fancy way of saying He will accomplish all that God has planned for the ages).
When my children were little, I had this incredible group of Christian women that I did life with. We drove carpools together, cooked dinners for one another, took walks with our kids on the beach together. We worshipped God together, we laughed and cried together. We loved one another deeply and I never felt a hint of judgement from any of those women though none of us was perfect by any means. When we moved away, it was hard to leave them. I lamented… who am I kidding, I grieved the loss for years. Now, God has brought me new Christian sisters that I adore but due to the suburban sprawl of where we now live, I can’t just walk down the street and plop down at their kitchen table to chat.
I bring these 3 seemingly unrelated thoughts together because they recently collided in my mind on the last night of our recent pilgrimage. As I took my last walk down the streets of Durham. I was fully aware I may never walk those streets again in this lifetime, and that’s when I had this powerful realization:
I may never walk these streets again in this lifetime, but someday I will walk them again. And when I do, I won’t be alone. I’ll be with all those Christian friends whom I couldn’t take with me on this trip. I’ll even be with those I haven’t met yet.
Someday, Jesus will return and He will redeem the entire earth (Rom. 8:19-23). I and all of my Christian sisters and brothers will be raised in a bodily resurrection (Phil. 3:20-21 & 1 Co. 15:51-52). Heaven will come to Earth (Rev. 21). We don’t know exactly how all of this will work but we know it will happen because scripture says so. And on that day, you, me, John the evangelist, Cuthbert, Ignatius of Loyola, Billy Graham… all of us will be together with Jesus. We will worship and praise the God who will make His home with us and His Kingdom will last for eternity (Rev. 21:3). And every inch of the earth will be soaked fully in God’s presence. Glory!
Until then, I recommend being like Ignatius and experiencing a slice of heaven now… find Christian sisters and brothers to do life with here and now. Love, support and serve them. See God’s image in them, even in their messy not yet fully-glorified state. Look for God’s fingerprints all around you. He is not far, for it is in Him that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). And thank God with me for giving us this taste of eternity called Christian community.
