“And this is what he promised us–eternal life.” (1 John 2:25)
The story is told that there was once a boy who found himself in trouble for a silly childish mistake. Ashamed, he went to the park and began to cry beneath a tree when a Good Fairy appeared asking him why he was weeping. When he explained, she offered him a solution in the form of a spool of thread which represented the remainder of his life. If he ever found himself in a similar situation to his current one, he would only have to snip a tiny bit of the thread to bypass the discomfort. The Fairy cautioned him, however, that he must use the spool wisely. Overjoyed, the boy returned home with the spool. The next day, his teacher handed back an assignment on which he had received a poor grade. Embarrassed, he took out his spool, snipped off a tiny bit of the thread, and was instantly transported from the classroom to the end of the school day. The boy immediately understood the usefulness of the contraption: skipping the hard moments. As more incidents of childish dilemmas passed – each time the boy snipped away the moment on his spool of life and escaped it. The pattern continued as he passed through adulthood. Soon enough, he finds himself to be an old man. Reminiscing on his life, he realizes that he has passed too many moments without fully experiencing them and has lost too much time by not living it. Sorrowfully, he returns to the tree where he found himself during childhood, weeping once more on what his life has become. To his surprise, the Good Fairy reappears. Seeing that he is now an old man, she inquires as to why he is crying. As he explains to her his regret, she reminds him that she had warned him against using the spool excessively. Then she waves her magic wand and promises him a chance at a new life. She leaves and he falls asleep, waking as a boy once more to relive his life.
Wishing away our lives, worried about what comes next, and wondering when it all comes to an end what will happen. This is all very typical of the human condition. Recently I heard the thoughts of two different individuals. The first came in the words of a friend who had recently lost her husband after fifty-plus years of marriage. She summarized his death as “very sad, but good.” Sad in the fact that she would now face life without him, but ‘good’ because he had now escaped his debilitating illness of many years. She was grateful that when the end came, she was with him as he passed from this life to the next. The second individual was a relative newcomer to Christianity. One day as he was discussing the concept of death with members of the church he attended, he emphatically stated that he believed that when you die – that was it! It was over, and you ceased to exist. Somewhere along the line, he missed the point of the life of Jesus and the greatest promise He gave us – that of everlasting life. Perhaps one of the most memorized of all Christian scriptures is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Everlasting or eternal life is the gracious promise every believer holds onto with joy and gratitude. Yet, we somehow develop the notion that it only represents our future . . . that we have to first endure our earthly existence and then one day receive eternal life as our ultimate reward. However, God actually desires that we grow into that promise here on earth. Learning to cope with and getting through the difficult moments in our lives validates our faith. The problem is that we get so bogged down with the challenges, problems, and responsibilities of our lives that we miss the incredible truth that we are empowered to live spiritually in the present as we come to believe and develop a connection with God’s very own Son. “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). While each of us must face the limitations of our earthly existence, we have access to God’s throne of grace and can this very day know the intimacy of a deep relationship with Him. When we don’t live as if we are displaying the confidence of everlasting life here and now, we limit what He is able to do through us as we interact with others. Jesus taught, “I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die” (John 8:51). We don’t need to snip away at the difficult portions of our life, concerned about that day when we will find ourselves holding the end of an empty spool. Jesus promises eternity which guarantees that our life thread is indeed everlasting.
REFLECTION: Do you give more thought to the securities of this life than you do to all of eternity? How can you position your current life differently by realizing that what is everlasting begins this very day?
A NEW LOOKUP DEVOTION IS UPLOADED EACH WEEK. THE NEXT WEEKLY POSTING WILL BE ON SAT., JANUARY 19, 2019. COMMENTS ARE WELCOMED.