When Shadows Fall...

Sitting at home in my room, with my Bible in my hands and all my limbs tucked in close to my body, with one soft yellow light pouring over the small black text printed delicately on the thin pages of my most treasured book, with my family asleep and my troubles at rest--I feel God. I know that His presence surrounds me. I read His Word, and I love it. I yearn for Him. A passion is ignited in my heart--one that makes me believe that I can do anything, go anywhere, and say anything for Him. I feel as though I've got all the power of the Holy Spirit that is described so vividly in the Scripture I'm reading. Then, feeling like I could conquer the world, I put my Bible away, turn out my light, and tuck myself into the soft sheets of my bed. I lie on my back and stare up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. And I fall asleep in the most peaceful manner I could ever think possible: wondering at the greatness of God, feeling His presence, and reveling in the strength of His love.

But then...I wake up. My alarm clock blares into my sleep, and I blink my eyes wearily as I listen to my siblings argue. I turn my alarm off and open my Bible again. I still like it. I still marvel at the wonderful pictures of God and the encouraging testimonies of His followers. But it isn't the same. The sun seems so much harsher than the moon. Silence has been replaced by chaos. I have woken up to reality--a cruel world filled with cruel people. I do my best to ignore it, to enjoy my time with God and to fill my empty soul with His comforting promises. Many times, I feel as though I succeed.

But as soon as my feet leave the white carpet in my room and touch the ugly pink carpet of my hallway, it all fades away. I can't feel Him anymore. The real world is here, and the comfortable atmosphere of my bedroom evaporates. Try as I might, I can no longer seem to focus on anything ethereal. It seems as though it has floated out of my reach and been replaced by the heavy and dark burden of this world.

The day drags on, and once in a great while I find something--maybe a song, or even just a chord--that briefly allows me to catch a glimpse of that beautiful existence that I know alone in my room. For a second or two, I remember what that feels like. But it never lasts long. The strange, dark veil of this troublesome world always covers my eyes again. And I am left anxious--restless. Restless for God. My hands claw at the air, desperately trying to grasp that infinite Being and all that He has to offer. My mouth is parched; my eyes are dry...I search for Him everywhere...

"Where is God in the city life? Where is God in the city light? Where is God in the earthquake? Where is God in the genocide? Where are You in my broken heart? Everything seems to fall apart. Everything feels rusted over. Tell me that You're there!"¹

I know I'm not the only one asking these questions. This cruel, devastating, and hopeless world gives us nothing. We know, deep down, that there's got to be something more. As a Christian, I know that this human desperation cannot be fulfilled by anything or anyone except for God Himself. But I also know, from experience, that God is somehow extremely hard for us to find...on our own.

Clouded by our worldly veils, we can't possibly see God. We are bogged down by depression, burdened with shame, surrounded by sin, overcome by hopelessness. We are so busy looking down that we can't ever seem to look up! But, thankfully, God never leaves us like that. He lifts up our chins, opens our eyes for one brief second, and gives us tiny glimpses of Himself. That's what I feel when I'm in my bedroom. That's why I know He's there. My prayer is that I will someday be able to feel Him like that even in the midst of this world's chaos. But what do I do while I'm waiting for that to happen? What about now??

Our world may seem like it's crashing down. But it's not like it was ever getting any better. Maybe we're just looking at it from a different perspective...We only see shadows because we are focusing on them. We only focus on shadows because we think that they are bad things. But what are shadows?? One might say they are simply proof of the sunshine.²

No matter how dark, hopeless, or terrible this world seems, we can't give up. God is there. Our brief glimpses of Him are enough to tell us that. We must learn that even when times get tough, even when sin tries to thrust its black hand over our eyes, we must push on. We must keep pursuing God. We must run towards Him with everything that we are. We must follow that burning desire within our hearts to find that something more. It's not going to be easy, but it will be worth it. I promise.

And so does God.
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¹ Switchfoot, “Vice Verses” (2011). Lyrics source: Musixmatch.

² Switchfoot, “The Shadow Proves the Sunshine” (2005).

Harps and Angels??

"Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever praising You." —Psalm 84:4 (NIV 1984)

Wait a minute. Stop right there. You mean to say that I have to spend all of eternity praising God? Are you serious? I can barely keep focused for one worship song...and you're telling me that I'm going to have to sing for eternity? Do you know how long eternity is? It's a long time, and—

Yeah. Eternity is a long time. If you want to look at it that way. Personally, I wouldn't really consider it "time." This is going to get complicated, but I think it's necessary. I don't think eternity can really be considered in our limited knowledge of time, for I honestly don't think God sees it that way. I think God functions outside of time. This is a concept we cannot possibly grasp, for we have never heard of anything outside of time. We have always lived in time. But I don't think we always will. I think Heaven is different—it's as far from time as God is.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way: "If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all" (Mere Christianity, p. 168).

As strange as it may seem to us now, this view of "time" seems to suggest that once we leave this world (and therefore enter the next), then we will also leave time itself. Our eyes will be opened so that we don't see time as we see it now. We'll see it how God sees it. I can't explain this now, for I too don't understand it. But I think that once we actually get to Heaven—once we actually see with our own eyes what eternity is like outside of time—then we will no longer worry about its length. It won't matter because it's not defined that way. We won't look at it as eternity future; we will just see it all as the present.

Well, that's all fine and dandy...but what about praising God? Even if I'm not worried about the time, won't I eventually get bored?? Sitting on a cloud with a harp doesn't appeal to me much—no matter how long I have to do it.

Who said you were sitting on a cloud? And who said you had to use a harp?? I believe God enjoys our worship more when it comes from our hearts. This may sound cheesy, but think about it. The most sincere worship comes from the deepest part of the human soul, and it is expressed through whatever talent that particular soul has been given. Some worship God through song. Others express their praise differently, using whatever talents they may have to bring God glory. This really could range from art or dance to philosophy, research, athletics, or history. Whatever you do with your life could be used to bring God glory, and I think Heaven's going to be the same way. I think we will be able to use the special abilities God has given us to praise Him. And unlike our worship here on earth, our worship in Heaven will be perfect. We won't get distracted, and we won't have to worry about how it looks or sounds.

That's nice...but what if I don't want to worship God sometimes?

Worship is not something that God's going to force us to do. Any praise we give must be uttered by choice, or it is worthless. God knows our hearts, and He knows where our words come from. He doesn't care for words that don't really mean something to the person saying them.

However, once we reach that eternity—that paradise that God has promised, that perfect place where we will finally come face to face with our Creator—will there be any moment when we won't want to worship God?

Well, yeah. Like right now. I don't feel like it right now. Even if my life was going absolutely amazing, I don't think I would be constantly worshiping God. After all, I'd run out of words, and then—

Run out of words? I doubt it. I Corinthians 13:12 says, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (NIV 1984). When we get to Heaven, we will finally see God as He really is. No longer will we be hindered by the erred views of mankind. We will see Him fully.

Have you ever realized some small part of God for a brief moment? Maybe you witnessed a miraculous answer to prayer. Maybe a preacher told you of one of God's amazing attributes. Maybe you heard something in a song that triggered a passion in your heart for Him. Whatever it was, I'm sure you've had one experience that made your heart leap. You thought, "Wow! God is amazing!!" You felt like you needed to jump and run and tell the whole world about your little experience of God. That's certainly what the lame man did when he was healed in Acts 3: "He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with [Peter and John] into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God" (v. 8, NIV 1984). This man was ecstatic. He had been healed!! After being crippled since birth, he could finally walk! And the first thing he did was give God the glory.

But I'm sure his excitement didn't last for the rest of his life. When trials come into our lives, we often lose that excitement. We may keep trusting Him, but we certainly won't feel that burst of joy that makes us want to praise Him with our whole soul.

I think that's why we have such a hard time with this concept of praising God for eternity. We are accustomed to only praising Him when we learn something new about Him. We discover only small parts of God, and we are so amazed that we can't describe our feelings. But in Heaven, this is going to be different. When we see God as He really is, we won't ever run out of things to praise Him for. We will be constantly in awe of Him! John Newton said, "Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought, but when I see Thee as Thou art, I'll praise Thee as I ought."¹

In Heaven, that burst of inexplicable excitement will last forever. We will finally grasp everything about God, and we will never be able to stop thanking and praising Him for who He is. Heaven will be so full of joy that we (in our human bodies) would never be able to physically handle it. We would surely explode! But in our new, heavenly bodies, we will be able to be that full of joy. Even then, I'm sure it will be pretty overwhelming. But—thank God!—we will finally be able to express it!! And (if we are going back to time) we will have all eternity to do so.

So you're saying that I'm going to actually enjoy worshiping God without worrying about anything else—including time itself—and that I'll never get bored of it?

Yup.

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¹ How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds (1779). Lyrics source: my.hymnary.org.

One Mistake

Last night, I tuned in to the US Olympic Trials and ended up watching the women's gymnastics. It was amazing how balanced they were—how strongly they held their positions and how perfectly they completed each stunt. It blew me away...at first. Then I watched in devastation as one girl slipped off the uneven bars and landed flat on her face. She wasn't hurt physically; but when she got up, you could tell that her emotions had crumbled. One mistake—and her Olympic dream was over.

Now, I don't know much about gymnastics, but I do know that it is a sport of perfection. One mistake can cost you your entire performance. The judges are strict, and there's nothing you can do to get around it. In order to win (in this case, to make it to the Olympics), you must be as flawless as possible. Perfection is ideal.

Unfortunately, as humans, this is utterly impossible. We can't ever be perfect. Ever. At times, we may think that we come close. Some of the gymnasts I watched certainly looked as if they had achieved it...but none of them got a perfect score. The judges could always find something to mark them down for.

This realization reminded me of the tragedy of the human race—the fact that no matter how hard we try, no matter how close to perfection we think we have come, we'll never succeed. We will never be perfect.

You might be thinking, "Well, that stinks, but it's okay. No one ever said we had to be perfect anyway." But wait. Someone did say that. And that Person's opinion should matter more to us than anything. God, our Creator (and, may I add, our eventual Judge), has commanded us to be perfect. He says in Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (NIV).

Now you're thinking, "Wait! He can't say that. If He knows as much as He says He does, He would know that we can't possibly carry out that command!" You're right. God does know that we are unable to carry out His command. In fact, we're unable to carry out any of His commands. Romans 3:23 says, "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (NIV). We can't measure up to His perfection. No matter how hard we try, no matter how close we think we have come, we will always fail.

But, thankfully, God did something about that. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth to live a perfect life and to die in our place. Jesus suffered and died for us, becoming sin on our behalf and receiving the punishment that we deserved. Because of His sacrifice, we no longer have to worry about living up to God's perfection. We failed. But Jesus didn't. And now He is offering out His hand, pleading with us to accept what He did for us so that we can spend eternity in Heaven with Him.

How cool is that?? The gymnasts who fell during their events didn't have anything like this. One mistake, and they were done. Their dreams of going to the Olympics were shattered instantly. The judges didn't come over and do the routine for them...but ours did. Our Judge came and did it for us. His perfection allows us (if we accept Him) to be made right with God. Because Jesus is perfect, we don't have to be. Of course, He still wants us to do our best to obey Him, but our deeds don't have anything to do with our salvation. We are saved because of what He did. In the words of the band Tenth Avenue North, "Don't live for God until you learn to live because of God. We're not living to be accepted. We're living because, in Christ, we already are."

What a relief that is...