Moving Forward

I usually know what I want to write when I begin.

At this moment I don’t even have a title. I know I want to get back into my writing groove; I know I want to keep putting to paper (or keyboard) the lessons God has been teaching me. But today there is no theme, no lesson. Just a heavy, deep feeling.

Last weekend I learned that a friend’s brother drowned. While he was not someone I knew personally, it still tugs on the emotions I have as if something happened to my son, or my sibling. Sudden deaths are confusing. We live as though we may last one hundred years, or at least seventy.

Seldom do we consider that God’s allotment of our days may be shorter than what we would assume. Is God unjust for giving differing times to different people? Is He unjust for startling us when someone is seemingly ripped away?

No, no God is not unjust.

As much as we mourn for those who have left this earth, we rejoice for those who have been called home to Jesus. Deep down we rejoice, but often that joy is buried miles beneath clenched fists and tear-filled eyes and shattered relationships that once were. I think sometimes we are rushed through the grieving process, but it’s just that: a process. A time of reflection of what once, what still is, and what is no more.

Death for the believer is only a crossing over from earth–where we know Jesus only by faith–to Heaven–where we shall see Him face to face. And when our loved ones are called home before us, it is a stark, sobering reminder that this is really what our purpose in life is: to be with Jesus. To glory in Him, whether on earth or in Heaven. To find joy in Him. To rejoice in our salvation. To share the good news that we have been saved from our sin and ourselves and our former separation from God…so that they may share in the glorious homecoming, too.

So we press forward, we move on, knowing there are, as C.S. Lewis put it, “…greater things ahead than any we leave behind.”

“Great and marvelous are Your deeds, Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are Your ways, King of the ages.

Who will not fear You, O LORD, and bring glory to Your name?
For You alone are holy.

All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.”
– Revelation 15:3b-4