Epiphany!

A few days ago I posted about desire. Today I feel like I am starting to put it all together. I have had some awesome time of reflection the past few days and God has really given me a peace and understanding about our desires. Angie asked me this week after emailing back and forth about desire, what my desires were. This is something I think about on a regular basis, but for some reason this week God really spoke to me through this question. I started thinking about my desires. I want to enjoy nature, I want to work outdoors, I want to be surrounded by friends, grilling out, I want to be 100% physically healthy so I can play and do all the things I want to do, I want to have a family, I want to be a school counselor, helping kids through those difficult times in high school, I want to eat amazing food, I want to have a farm on about 100 acres, with a lake and a tall mountain, I want to travel the world, the list goes on and on. I realized that what I am describing is HEAVEN!!!! With the prompting of various scripture and John Eldredge's book, I realized that if i had all these things, why would I need God? If I had those things, I could be happy here without God!

"God must take away the Heaven we create (or try to create), or it will become our Hell. You may not think your efforts to arrange for a little of what you desire are anything like Heaven on Earth. But some deep and tender part of us gets trapped there in those times and places where we have had a taste of the life we long for (Eldredge, Desire)." God places the desire in our hearts so we have a yearning to seek Him and a yearning for what is beyond this life. Too often we experience little "tastes" of Heaven. That fluttering lightheaded feeling of being in love, the exhilaration of our favorite team winning the World Series, the awe inspiring feeling when sitting on the top of a 10,000 mountain. We all have different experiences that allow us to touch Heaven. God plans for this. Our problem comes when we taste that desire and decide we want that here now and forever in this lifetime. We turn that desire and that experience into an idol and worship it and do everything to achieve it. The problem is that we can't. We can't because that is reserved for ETERNITY.

I know it may seem that I have jumped quite far from my desires and the feeling that God wants us to fulfill those desires, but he does! After realizing that all of the things I was longing for are awaiting me in Heaven, I realize my only desire is to live a life pleasing to the Lord, to stand by Him and keep my focus on Him even when the going gets tough. He has a sanctuary prepared for me. When we desire Him we can look past the winter of our lives and DESIRE the reward of Spring.

"Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is REVEALED."

1 Peter 1:13

"See! The winter is past; the rains have gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come."

Song of Songs 2:11-12

I have always had a hard time setting my sight on Eternity because my view of Heaven was so whispy... I saw Heaven as a city in the sky.... a place with people dressed in white robes, walking around talking... hanging out.... in the presence of God. It sounded nice, but not exciting enough! I realized that HEAVEN is here. God will renew the Earth and we will experience the place we have lived our lives like we have never seen it before. It will be magnificent and fresh and new. Eldredge quotes Revelation, "Look I am making all things NEW (Rev 21:5) Not I am making all new things."

Finally he really makes me get excited when he suggests that the reason there is reported silence for half an hour of eternity is because we are all quite speechless (Rev 8:1).

There is so much more that can be elaborated on and touched on. Some of these ideas may bounce around too much. But I feel like God has lifted a veil that covered my eyes for so long. I have been stuck in a rut, worshipping my desires. I am ready to worship God, thankful that I get to spend and eternity bbcueing on my ranch with all the people I love.