It Doesn’t Last Long
A Christian can blunt the force of this world’s troubles by remembering that nothing this world assaults him with will last for very long.
There are a sea of believers in Heaven right now, adoring and being adored by Jesus Christ. I venture that none of them is still morose over an unanticipated medical bill or the results of an election. To a man confronted with the reality of an eternity with Jesus in glory, this world’s most pungent, offensive trials are incredibly light and momentary.
Let’s imagine Matt. He’s working as a shift supervisor at an auto parts manufacturing plant. He’s wondering currently if he’s going to be laid off, what with his company’s volume down due to economic conditions he can’t control. He’s also worried about his wife, who is pregnant and just had a massive fight with her sister that has her down. His manager at work is a bear to deal with, and so for eight to ten hours a day Matt is struggling to be joyful and hopeful and work with a glad heart. The struggle tires him out so much that on the drive home he sometimes falls asleep for a few seconds on the straight stretch of road he’s on for about ten minutes before turning into his subdivision. He has to turn on the A/C full blast and open his eyes so wide more than one passing car on the other side of the road has thought he was on drugs, but he’s able to stay awake and get home each day where he prays for five minutes in the driveway. Matt feels tight, and he also feels a little unsure of what his next move is supposed to be. Life seems to be much more complicated than he’d thought it would be as a teenager. A million little decisions and acts of either goodwill or sinful selfishness that slowly, sometimes painfully slowly, add up to something you can actually see and assess.
But Matt begins reading through Revelation with a co-worker who’s also a part of his church. And a few weeks in, as they’re talking in the break room, Matt realizes, with what feels like a bolt of lightning in between his eyes, that Jesus Christ really will return to judge the living and dead and to remake the earth so that all His people can live with Him forever. And the lightning bolt is as bright and as big as it is because Matt realizes he has no idea how long forever is. He is thirty-four years old. If he could line up a dozen of his lifetimes one after the other and endure all of the pain of each of them, at the end of it forever wouldn’t have even started to take its first breath. And as he considers the fact, right there in black-and-white in his NIV Study Bible, as he really ponders it and eats the sandwich his wife packed for him (bologna and mustard), he finds himself unable to feel as fretful about whether he’ll be laid off. All of a sudden the prospect of looking for another job or delivering pizzas to keep food on the table doesn’t feel as weighty when you’re suddenly cognizant of the fact that you will be in uninterrupted paradise with Jesus Christ long before this manufacturing plant gets bulldozed and turned into a hover port. And then downstream from that blessed moment your Jesus will return to earth and remake everything, casting all the cancers and wars and unrepentant sinners into the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth far outside His presence. And as you swallow the bologna and bread and mustard you realize all of these problems of this life are like a Florida rainstorm: Violent and dampening and brief.
A Christian can live in light of a certain eternity, a string of endless tomorrows where the One you love and wait for is with you and can never be separated from you. Our problems and pains are no less real than the unbeliever’s, but the hope we have is far more real, a hope that is as certain as the character of Christ.
To my brothers and sisters like Matt: Wait just a little longer. We will see our Jesus soon.