2022-11-05 A Meditation on Better Hopes
“He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (Jn 3:31–36 ESV)
Yearning creatures, hard on ourselves we are, desiring to be reliable, no nonsense when once we’ve come to labor for Jesus, for we once knew goodness and were no simple fallen creatures but had shade and remnant of an early, more innocent time.
Yet fallen we were, sin a duel master against our waking peace, sin crouching at the door, sin inventing new bad habits never before a problem, yet amidst it all the gentle call homeward by a Lord and Savior whom we, though fallen, do love.
How, in our wrecked estate, can we love? It is because we are dressed in fine threads according to His mercy and goodness. It is because we are attributed to be holistically healed, revealed to be new, helped to see the “What if?”, the positivity, the higher thoughts allowed to reign. For we do desire, desire to be reliable even though we’ve failed in crucial times past; we desire to lap up the holy waters and nip at the outstretched hand, master, patient, teaching and training, no longer canine sinners but now living out our better halves.
As though we had two halves. As though we were shepherded in heavenly trust rather than in coercion. We long to please. We adore this our gentle taskmaster, as servants and as enlisted and as awakened unto new digs this day. In the King’s courts, we are motivated and today inspired; yes, we can exercise, on a new lease, our better thoughts and higher designs. We are trusted and reliable, because we have not renounced the faith after that day when it found us. When we have doubted and railed against God, screaming at an empty room or in our prayer closet, His silence has spoken much. His silence has ratcheted us up to some final judgment, yet we do not fear, only know this: there are puppies in heaven and there are lords in heaven, and God will work with us until a vast realm, vast scope, of possible positive, unheard of, judgments are ours to live into. That is, we cease to covet the higher places of honor, and know whatever He has for us does exceed our wildest dreams.
A loving, avuncular, secretly-working kind of head is ours. He is our head, and our heart no longer settles for less. We do not settle for constrained, pained, servanthood. Instead, we buck the digs on this earth for our heavenly garment, attending that great wedding feast, not easily discouraged: “But this one is too, too… happy!”. No matter; our contentment is fruit of a life spent searching and settling for nothing less than a full inheritance. Others, long in the faith, outdoing us in years chalked up to service, seem embittered: “While YOU were having fun, I was constrained by this yoke thing”. Yet to concede that is to make a friend, who knows, they have patterns of reliability unfamiliar to us, yet our own heart is reliable to a friend, new or old, and reliable to take up the cross, to be chief among sinners, to have inward joy at new personality quirks understood; we have no time to remain “sinner”, but hasten to that heavenly banquet where all are appeased, sated, newly made, joyous, and overcome.