IT WILL NOT ALWAYS BE SO

BY STEVE DUNN

"At present we are on the wrong side of the door, but all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so." - CS Lewis

Tim Hansel once wrote, "The problem with life is that it is so daily."  I would have to qualify that comment with my own statement, "The problem with life it is so difficult."  I am by nature neither a pessimist nor a sayer of doom.  I am, however, that many live each day with a high level of anxiety and frustration.  Some even rise to the level of Henry David Thoreau's critique: 

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” 

I do not always know what to do with fellow Christians who are unrelentingly cheery, especially when I think they life verse is not biblical but something from Madison Avenue, "Never ever let them see you sweat." 

 

Nor do I deal well with Christians who complain how hard things are or believe their circumstances must perfect or comfortable because they are God's people.  Jesus himself had a thought on this:

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - John 16.33b

Like persons both Christian and non, I have good days and bad ones--days of anxiety and days of confidence.  But in all days I have a sense of peace, a peace that really is beyond understanding.  It is rooted and grounded not in my circumstances nor my moods, but in a relationship.

"If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord." - Romans 14:8

And that is grounded in a even greater truth:

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:38-39

So for now, I live on this side of the door,with all of its imperfections and limitations, challenges and crises,  content with the "rustling of the rumor that it will not always be so."

(C) 2013 by Stephen L Dunn