• Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Writings
    • Books
    • Book Reviews
  • Q & A
  • Favorite Links
  • Contact
  • Email me
  • RSS Feed
  • Facebook

"If you abide in My Word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free...So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed!" (John 8:31-32,36)

Too Much at Home Here on Earth

October 7, 2012 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“All these died in faith…having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”    (Hebrews 11:13)

Life is strangely and wonderfully filled with ambiguities and mysteries. It’s always wonderful to come home, especially after an absence of several days. I love the adventure of unknown places in the world. I discovered that spending two winters two hundred and fifty miles above the Arctic Circle at Prudhoe Bay.

Yet, coming home holds some feelings of not really being where I want to be. Maybe it’s the wanderlust in me. I love driving in the countryside; and almost being three-quarter of a century old, the woods, lakes, streams and meadows seem lovelier than ever before. I get to feeling that I’m going to miss all this beauty when I go toes up and they plant me in the family plot.

But that gets me thinking of life after my demise – that is when my biological clock has ticked its last beat. Reminds of some wise words I read long ago…

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”

I’m sure Wordsworth saw much more in nature than most of us. I hear his words in my memory…

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

that floats on high o’er vales and hills,

when all at once I saw a crowd,

a host, of golden daffodils;

beside the lake, beneath the trees,

fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

Ah, the beauty of life all around us! But then I wonder, did Wordsworth see beyond this life? Did he gaze with the eyes of his spirit and wonder what the Celestial City might be like?

“And the city had no need of the sun or the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. And in the daytime (for there shall be no night there) its gates shall never be closed; and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it; but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 21:23-27).

As a professing Christian, I’m convicted of being too much with the world. I’m shamed by my spiritual shallowness. Jesus said,

“If he world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

It’s truly a shame that we can’t be different enough to be hated by the world. I have friends and work associates who really don’t like me. I don’t always laugh at their jokes. They seem to try to get a reaction out of me by their coarseness. But they don’t hate me. I try to be a nice guy. It makes me wonder if I can say, like Paul,

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:18-19).

The creation groans to be relieved from the curse. And God’s people groan in spirit, longing also to be delivered from being “strangers and exiles on the earth.” Yes,

“we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23).

Oh, to look beyond the glories of this present world to the ultimate glories that await those who walk in the footsteps of the Savior! Oh, to be able to confidently say with Paul,

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

God give us such a vision!

Beryl's Blog, Heaven, Life Struggles, Spiritual Growth Tagged: eternity, heaven, vision

Beryl Smith

AvatarBeryl has a great love for studying the Bible and Christian theology. Beryl is a 12th generation descendant of Ralph Blaisdell, an English Puritan who came to America from Bristol, England in August, 1635 on the sailing ship “The Angel Gabriel.”
Read More…

Subscribe to my Blog:

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Recent Posts

  • Fresh as the Sunrise
  • East-West Separation
  • Listening To Jesus
  • A Thorn, You Say?
  • Moral Relevance – The Rabbit Trail to Dissipation

Recent Comments

  • Beryl Smith on Myopicism
  • Charles t. Smith on Sick and Angry
  • James on Myopicism
  • Dan Appel on Another Look at the Emergent Church
  • Rose Hay on Dumbing-Down the Evangelical Scene

Categories

  • Abortion
  • Belief
  • Beryl's Blog
  • Christian Vocation
  • Christian Witness
  • Christianity
  • Church
  • Condemnation
  • Courage
  • Culture
  • Death
  • Devotion
  • Discipline
  • Emergent Church
  • Eternity
  • Evangelical Church
  • Evil
  • Faith
  • forgiveness
  • free will
  • Grace
  • Heaven
  • Hell
  • Holiness
  • Holy Spirit
  • Judgement
  • Justification
  • Learning
  • Life Struggles
  • Love
  • Mercy
  • Mission
  • Murder
  • Pain
  • Prayer
  • Repentance
  • Salvation
  • Separation
  • Sin
  • Sovereignty
  • Spirit
  • Spiritual Growth
  • Spiritual Truth
  • Suffering
  • Theology
  • Trials
  • Truth
  • Vocation
  • Witnessing
  • Worldview
  • Worship

Archives

  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • February 2017
  • May 2016
  • February 2016
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • May 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012

Popular Topics

abortion belief Christianity condemnation courage culture death Divine Providence doctrine eternity Evangelical Church evil faith forgiveness free will grace heaven Holy Spirit Israel joy Judgement mercy mission multiculturalism murder postmodern Postmodern Christianity prayer regeneration revival salvation Savior separation sin sovereignty Spirit spiritual growth Spiritual Truth suffering teachers theology trials vision vocation witnessing

Copyright © 2023 · Going Green Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in