A Spirit Not Of Fear

 I was huddled over my psychology book, precariously situated up-top the stool beside our kitchen island. My window reflected the same near-autumn view it has framed since this morning; all of dove-gray and charcoal. A few feet from me, the dishwasher gargled menacingly from its own little corner, loudly proclaiming the fulfillment of its duties as the backdrop for my studies.

Until suddenly, it stopped. Stopped, utterly and completely. I was left with nothing but the sound of... nothing. From a gurgling, muted sort of roar to absolutely nothing at all.

Nothing.

Nothingness.

Nothing.

I lifted my eyes and looked out the window at the gray sky swarming over the trees, heart beating amain as my ears waited breathlessly for the trumpet sound to pierce the utter silence. For surely, that was to come next...? The awful blast, the terrible rending of the sky and the furling of it as a curtain, and then our longing fulfilled; our stealing away into the deep, beautiful mystery that is all of God's splendor, to be secret to us no longer. No more the jeweled veil of the heavens to stand as a shield between us and the terrible beauty of the Almighty, as the glory of our rapture ushers us into His infinity... no more the aching of this world, no more the shadows; everything, everything swept away in the mighty gust of the Eternal's beckoning. All the echoes of eternity to erupt in splendor in the mere breath of one beautiful, awful moment.


A single moment of silence.



Had I held my breath until the trumpet blast, my heart would by now have stopped beating. It never came.

 The house soon returned to sound, my heart to its sighing rhythm, and as soon as this is posted I shall return to studying for my Psychology exam. Yet, I find that I cannot do so quite the same. For in me is a heart within which beats something of eternity, that ever-aching thrum of longing, of tiredness, of yearning... of hope. Oh, the fluttering rhythm is always there: it never leaves, but it is so often lost beneath the mutterings of the Temporary Reality. Only when these mutterings are stilled may it again be noticed, standing out suddenly as a smattering of paint on a blank canvas or the plucking of a single harpstring. The moment of remembrance is pierced with an aching like nothing I have ever known, yet which is more familiar to me than anything, because I have always known it.

 Yet nothing, not even the aching, can quell the bursting joy that slashes through the numb shadows of our temporal existence when we seize the knowledge of Reality. For the reason we long, the reason we ache, is because we are straining for something Real—a beauty beyond our tactile mirrors and smoke. It is the ardent longing for the truth of Eternity that is not only our sorrow, but our solace. What we long for will not be held away forever: it will come, in a bounding, leaping dawn of Jubilee.

A single moment of silence—may every moment be so full of eternity.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Heaven lately. Not death – but Heaven. And when I think about it, it hurts to realize how much I don’t know, can’t see, and cannot possibly imagine. No matter how much Heaven and the new earth are described in Revelation, in my human weakness I can’t possibly imagine them in their fullness. I try, but I’m so limited in what I picture.

I imagine that the sky is like an ocean of light, deeper and clearer than looking into a crystal, and the world is full of spinning, dancing, beautiful, gleaming colors we’ve never seen before. Colors we can’t imagine or name. I imagine the tree of life, and the river of the water of life, flowing down the middle of the beautiful street like liquid diamonds. I imagine gardens. I imagine music. I imagine so much more.

And I imagine God.

I imagine looking at Him and seeing only light, but at the same time being drawn into His eyes: beautiful and strong and wise and powerful and gentle...and so, so full of love. I imagine walking with Him as He walked with Adam and Eve; being drawn into everything that He is, and knowing nothing else matters.

Knowing nothing else ever did.

And that’s why it hurts so much: not knowing, not seeing, not having the capacity to picture. It’s not just about the beauty of Heaven or the new earth. It’s about knowing Him more than ever before. Having every other feeling stripped away and being left in nothing but awe, worship, and total, utter love, in the place where everything is beautiful and perfect and His. In Revelation, we get a glimpse of that. And that small, beautiful glimpse is enough to make my heart ache with longing for it.

But I’m not there yet. We’re not there yet. And though sometimes we wonder why we’re left here in this dying world, where it can be so challenging to feel God near us, we can’t always know. But we don’t need to. It’s enough to know that He is, and He is with us just as much here as in Heaven, though we can't see Him. Forever and always, we are His. No matter where we are or what we see, Heaven or Earth, His love never changes.

And neither does He.