Tonight I feel very finite, but it is an illusion. My grin is large and my heart is full but my body is very tired and a little sore. My energy, my days, my body-life may have limits, but my God doesn't. He has been from before time and will continue to be throughout time. He created time and isn't bound by it. He created sequence, and remains outside of it. He starts things and brings them to a conclusion but is, Himself, without beginning or end.
I quoted my life verse last night: "He has set eternity in the hearts of men, but they cannot fathom the scope of it from beginning to end." Ecc. 3:11 (my paraphrase)
Like God, we are also eternal, or at least semi-eternal. We have a beginning but our end is in Him and therefore has no end. Billy Graham said of his own death, "Some day you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now." Still, death remains a valid shock. Every person you have ever met, prince or pauper, will outlast the stars themselves. C.S. Lewis said:
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."
This is where the danger lies. Despite our semi-eternal nature, we treat our own existence as a frantic rush from here to somewhere out there. We forget the part that we play in building up or tearing down the rest of our immortal race. Lewis goes on to say:
"The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations."
That thought is rightfully intimidating, but take heart! God takes our life formation as seriously as it demands even when we forget. We may rush about, but He never does. We forget the context of eternity but He never will. The character we build into our heart's will is what we take with us into forever and it is too precious to be treated lightly. You can curse and moan about the trouble you face, but it is that very trouble He is using to craft you into your eternal shape. Paul tells us, "And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns." (Phil 1:6)
How have you honored your neighbor's glory today? Did you push them toward Christ, imprinting His image on them or did you drive them away? What can you do tomorrow?
Thank You Father for the way You so carefully tend our eternal hearts. We have no idea how precious You have made us to be. We trust You to make us like You and to use us to build others up too.
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