Welcome to Life!

My days are spent for the most part in mundane contentment–caring for my family, serving my church, keeping (most of) my deadlines, enjoying my friends, following my favorite sports teams. Life is good. The challenges God has sent or allowed to come my way have been difficult but not destructive, hard but not consuming. I have been blessed. But there are days, when I think of three suffering friends in particular and many world-wide tragedies in general, that I long for heaven.

In the title track to his 2004 album You Make All Things New, Steven Curtis Chapman paints a picture of creation, and how God made everything, and it was new. Then sin came and ruined it all, and God began to renew and restore the old…to make it new again.

“You took the hopeless, a life wasted ruined and marred, and made it new. You make all things new, You make all things new, You redeem and You transform, You renew and You restore. You make all things new, You make all things new, and forever we will watch and worship you.

You turn winter into spring, You take every living thing, and You breathe the breath of life into it over and over again. You make the sun rise, day after day after day, but there’s a morning coming, when old things will all pass away, and everyone will see…

You make all things new…come redeem and come transform, come renew and restore, and forever we will watch and worship You. Now and forever You are making all things new…alleluia…” (Listen to it here.)

Just this week we’ve been given a dramatic picture of God bringing new life out of certain death–the 33 Chilean miners raised, one by one, from the depths of the earth. Brought from darkness to  light, inevitable death to restored life…the scenes broadcast worldwide were amazing to watch. Chilean president Sebastian Pinera said it best to one of the miners as he emerged from the rescue capsule: “Welcome to life!”

Let’s not miss the parallels. Each of us is, or has been, trapped in darkness in need of a rescuer. Those of us who have found Jesus and trusted in his cross to rescue us from the penalty of sin have new life…true life. And one day we’ll share that life forever with Jesus, in His presence, under His immediate authority and direction.

Read Revelation, chapters 4 and 5, to gain a glimpse into the throne room of God. One things I’ve noticed recently about the descriptions the apostle John wrote–everything around the throne is identified and described in glorious analogies, “like unto” something brilliant, valuable, dazzling. But God Himself is not described. There are no words suitable, colorful or amazing enough, to relate God’s appearance. Either that, or John could not bear to look directly upon the Father.

Being reminded of this present reality, though yet future for me, encourages me in the hardships of this life. God is Almighty, in control, accomplishing His plan, all-good and all-competent. So when I see darkness, in the sufferings of my friends or the tragedies of strangers, or in the hurts my children endure at the hands of classmates, I am able to rest in the knowledge that this life is the “now” but there is a “not yet” to come.

Revelation 21:5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”