Longing

Life just isn't what I had hoped. I flung that jagged statement out to Chris recently. "What do you mean", he asked. "I guess I'd hoped this world would be more like the next one than it is," I responded. To which he replied, "that doesn't make any sense." Which of course it doesn't, although maybe it does. Even as Jesus is transforming me on the inside, the outside world is still decaying. I feel fettered by time, disappointed in relationships, limited by finances. Something deep within me leaps at the hope of these words found in Romans 8:19-21, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." What can that possibly mean, what will we be like when we're finally "revealed"?! Can you imagine the song creation will sing when it is "liberated from it's bondage"?! Colossians 2:3-4, "your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." These words echo the deep longing of my heart. You see, I don't think my soul has ever lost the deep imprint of the garden, even though I personally have never been there, it knows it was meant for something more. So maybe I should know better, that this broken, groaning world can never satisfy me, but there is part of me that's always looking for a glimpse, a clue of what's to come. Part of me feels at moments, that my heart really is somewhere else and it resents being chained to a home that's not it's own. I rebel at the limit time puts on cultivating relationships; longing for the day that hours don't matter, busyness doesn't encroach, clocks no longer rule because there is an endless supply of time. My blog title, Beck Far From Home, reflects those feelings and longings. It's not just that I am far from what I am familiar with as my earthly home. It's more that I feel distant from my true home, a place I've never been but will recognize instantly.

Years ago I had the chance to see Claude Monet's painting Water Lilies in person. I was astonished! I had seen the painting many times on calenders, prints, mugs, etc. I was unaware of the inadequacy of those reproductions. When I saw the original I was unprepared for the contrast, it took my breath away. The painting was enormous taking up a full wall in the museum, the colors richer than I imagined, the texture produced contrast and lighting only perceptible in person. I sat and stared for a long while, amazed it it's beauty. I imagine our liberated, redeemed world will be the same way. It will be familiar, identifiable in the same sense I could identify Monet's painting, I had seen it before just not in the way it was intended to be seen. I know deep inside that one day I will experience our world as I was intended to, as it was intended to be. "If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

These musings appear to have nothing to do with Christmas. However, at the heart they do. If it hadn't been for sweet Jesus coming our world could never have been set free from it's curse of sin, any more than we could have been. Just as the maiden waits in the enchanted castle to be awakened by true love, the world was sleeping under a spell waiting for it's Prince to come. And he came, full of truth and love, sacrifice and power, he came to break the curse. He burst upon the scene one silent night and nothing has ever been the same. He answers the longings.