Life rarely gives us what we want. How many of us have dreamed of things that bring us great joy but can’t find any way to fulfill them in this age? We look at others who have the job we want, a better marriage than the one we struggle in, or with opportunities we wish we had. We see people getting the “lucky breaks” while it seems like everything we try seems to turn to dust. It is easy to think that God is against us, or at least life is. The longer we live the more frustrating our disappointments can become.
I ran across this quote by C. S. Lewis yesterday:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
I love that thought. Sure some of our dreams and desires are fleshy and fulfilling them wouldn’t bring any of the joy we hope it would. But many of our deep-seated desires will never be fulfilled in this age, not because God doesn’t love us, but because this world cannot fulfill them anyway. I have often been comforted in the face of such desires knowing that they may be drawing me into a truer space, where the flesh no longer harasses us and where joy is untainted by human greed and competition.
It is easy to forget that our 70-80 years of life here is so fleeting. Scripture says it is like the dew on the grass which dries up in the morning sun. Real life lies beyond a veil we can’t see beyond. I often think of all of our life in this world like standing around in the lobby of a great play or concert, waiting for the doors to open. You weren’t created for the brokenness of this age; you were made for a richer destiny in realities that your mind has not even thought of yet.
But we do have tastes of it—moments where love seems so rich and nourishing you’d think you’d die in its beauty, of joyful abandon when the cares of the world are swallowed up by pure bliss, and even where a dream exhilarates your heart with the hope of, “If only…”
So don’t let the brokenness of this world define your hopes. Why wouldn’t God fill us with hopes and desires that are for the main show, not the lobby? Why wouldn’t you hunger for things that you may only glimpse in part in this world but will someday be completely fulfilled in ways you don’t know?
So rather than let your disappointments frustrate you, let them draw you closer to the Father who gave them to you and bask in the hope that someday, perhaps sooner than we all think, they will be fulfilled in ways that make even glimpses of them here seem like a paltry shadow anyway. Wait until the real glory comes!
A wonderful truth on changing the way we look at life… changing the glasses that we look through..
Beautifully said,Wayne. I love the glimpses of eternity shining through and those glimpses more and more make life on this side sweet and make me almost breathless in anticipation! Thank you
Wayne I love that quote by C. S. Lewis too. I currently have it on my home page. http://www.seeinggrace.com
I love your writings and your understanding of the “real.” I think we are kindred spirits.
James Barron
This post brings to mind that song I love to hear called Glorious Unfolding.
Thanks!
Wow!!! That is awesome. I love that phrase “you were made for a richer destiny in realities that your mind has not even thought of yet”
Yes!! Those words are just what I need it today. I was asking God for comfort when I’ve got your post. Isn’t he gracious!? Thank you 🙂
When I recently read your quote in Mere Christianity by CS Lewis this verse came to mind:
Ecclesiastes 3: 11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
And then I thought how Paul explains how our engaging with God’s love in this present earthly life is indeed a foretaste, although feeble now, of our anticipated full understanding in the coming eternity.
1 Corinthians 13: 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Cor 13 shows us how our dwelling in Father’s love is the means by which we are privileged by the Spirit to overcome inward temptations and outward trials. Our present “partial childlike” apprehension will become maturely “fully known” in the eternal day and be made even richer when we comprehend how His love, though now feebly “known in part”, has sustained us here.
I suggest eternity is not only what we look forward to, but also is the present experience of Eternal Life in our hearts by “Living Loved”!
Such a great post, and thoughtful follow-up comments. I like this tribe. Thank you for reminding us of the joy set before us!