Inspiration

By Connie Arnold

Our Eternal Present

Do you have a Norman Rockwell calendar on your wall? Are your favorite songs pulled from by-gone eras? Do you pass over books set in contemporary times for those going back before the advent of an overpowering technology? The Waltons? Andy Griffith? Do you prefer homecooked meals? (Not the preparation/cleanup part.) Then you may be in the group that sighs for the ‘good old days.’

Do you think you were born in the wrong generation?  A person born out-of-time? How far back would you have to go? Grandma’s and grandpa’s time? Their grandparents? Stagecoach days?

Perhaps we would be satisfied to go just far enough back to our childhood when our parents took care of us, and we knew nothing of responsibility, and we could play outdoors, safely, until dark.

What about Adam and Eve? I’m sure Adam desired to go back to the time when he didn’t earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, untangling briars and thistles from the hair on his animal skin clothing while slapping at the stinging insects. Perhaps experiencing the agony of childbirth, we hear Eve cry out for the time before pain entered the world.

There’s evidence that in Solomon’s day people were voicing discontent even while Israel was experiencing peace and prosperity. We read of the people complaining, “Why is everything worse than it used to be?” (Ecclesiastes 7:10b CEV), In that same verse, Solomon says, “it isn’t wise to ask this.”

Actually, I think we are yearning for the good that we perceive reigned in bygone eras: quieter times; slower pace; peaceful surroundings; less complicated activities; time to build real friendships.  But most often, perception is not reality.

Solomon says, “Nothing makes sense! Everything is nonsense. I have seen it all—nothing makes sense! (Ecclesiastes 1:2, CEV). When we hear this, we all respond with a resounding ‘amen’.

Solomon concludes, “I know the best thing we can do is always enjoy life, because God’s gift to us is the happiness that we get from our food and drink and from the work we do.” (Ecclesiastes 3:12, CEV). And we know these are the activities in every generation.

So, here we stand in our time, and our place, living through the present days that the Lord has ordained for us. “This day belongs to the Lord! Let’s celebrate and be glad today.” (Psalm 118:24 CEV). Someone has encouraged us to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. To act on this is to begin enjoying our present life.

It occurs to me, that maybe it’s not the by-gone times that we long for, maybe it’s our future. Not more future, so we’ll have more past to look back upon, but the future where the past will be blotted from our memories.

Heaven. Our eternal home will be our continual present.

John Bunyan, in The Pilgrim’s Progress, calls it the celestial city and the city of light where we’ll wear shining garments and live in the presence of the King. All is brightness; no dust from the earth is there to dim our vision. Song writers have used many poetic terms: pearly white city; eternal home; Beulah land. The list is as endless as man’s dreams of a better place.

John says it best in Revelation 21. He tells of a city with streets of pure gold, walls of jasper, sapphire, agate, emerald, onyx, carnelian, chrysoprase, jacinth, amethyst, and each of the twelve gates a pearl.

John “heard a loud voice shout from the throne: God’s home is now with his people. He will live with them, and they will be his own…no more death, suffering, crying, or pain. These things of the past are gone forever.” (Revelation 21:3 CEV).

If in this present life, when we are tempted to pine for the past, “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” (Hebrews 12:1b KJV).

The future in Heaven is our goal.