Assured Waiting

I hate to be repetitive, but this post will be similar to the one I wrote last month, Anticipation. I'm going to use a lot of the same examples to discuss the topic of waiting from a different angle. I'm sort of answering my own question, which I will probably ask again later anyway.

This morning in church we sang "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name;" a new song with old words. Between the "spreading trophies at his feet" and "joining in the everlasting song," I became a little overwhelmed with joy at my hope of entering the most joyful place in existence, and staying there for good. For clarity, I do not mean "hope" (n.) to mean "wish;" I mean hope to mean "knowledge" or "assurance."

I thought about how I will one day "arrive." This world teaches us about all the ways to "arrive" in life. If we become happily married, we've arrived, or if we have a few beautiful and obedient children, or if our salary hits six digits, or if we reach nirvana, or if we secure our dream job... we've arrived. Happiness is ours and our life is complete. We can now sit and rest in our arrival.

But we will never arrive in this life. There is very little good here that can be sustained. As one of my clients put it, we have to keep striving just to maintain. We can't just do nothing and expect to stay where we're at. We have to work out to stay in shape. We have to clean and do construction on our city, or it will crumble in fewer years than you'd expect.

Our true arrival will come, if we've accepted Christ, when we die here.

Something must die before we can move on to a better life. New life begins at birth, right? No, first a baby must serve 9 months' time in the enclosed world of its mother. It will soon move onto a bigger, better, freer world, but at the cost of the life of, well, the placenta. (Hopefully that's not too graphic for my gentlemen readers. Please understand I'm trying to be more than theoretical.)

In "Tortured for Christ," Richard Wurmbrand describes an analogy for convincing someone that there is a life beyond this one, saying that if an infant in the womb had understanding and you could have a conversation with it, you could tell it that there was a life beyond the womb of its mother, and it may not believe you. But if it questioned the growth of its muscles, lungs, etc., which it does not need in the womb, it would realize that they grow in preparation for the next life. Similarly, we grow in wisdom and understanding for the duration of our lives on earth, but for what? We will need them in our next life. We do not grow them only to die with little chance to use them once they are mature.

But that is not my point. My point is that there is real assurance in salvation, in arriving, in a joyful existence after graduating from this laborious one. What it will look like, I wish I knew. Your presents under the Christmas tree hold unknown treasures, but treasures nonetheless, and they have your name on them. You cannot have them yet, but they are already yours. My client who will soon be able to move into a low-income apartment has one with her name on it, but she can't move in until the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted. But it's hers. A virgin who is engaged to be married does not yet know the treasures of intimacy with her husband, but she must only wait before enjoying them. He has already sealed his devotion; the treasures, yet unopened, are hers.

I ate lunch while writing this. I started this post pretty hungry, wrote the second and third paragraphs while cooking lunch, and spent the rest of this post eating and finishing my food. But I noticed that my hunger slowly started to disappear while I was cooking and even when I had the warm and savory meal sitting in front of me, before I took my first bite. The knowledge itself that fullness that was coming for me helped that fullness to happen. I began to be satisfied simply by knowing that I would soon be satisfied.

And that is what I must remember during the pain and trials of life on Planet Earth.


God bless.