Thought of the day:
Why has God given us some details and not others?
We often like to think about what daily life might be like for us after judgment day and we are raised from the dead for life with God in paradise. Will I play board games with King David? Will I play sports with J. S. Bach? Will people still cook foods or experiment in kitchens or will we only eat what grows from trees? Will we all be gardeners? What does it mean that we will judge angels? God hasn’t given us many of those kinds of details about what is coming for us.
We have many beautiful descriptions of what is to come. There will be no more hunger or pain, and God will be our light and will wipe every tear from our eyes. We can infer that it will be like the first Garden before our fall in its perfection, yet even more glorious. (This page has a decent collection of describing verses: https://everydayservant.com/70-bible-verses-describing-heaven/)
We know, for instance, that we aren’t just looking toward some life playing harps in the clouds, but rather “a new heavens and a new earth.” We know that we aren’t looking forward to a life as ethereal spirit beings but to a resurrection of our bodies, as Christ Himself was raised. “Yet with my flesh I shall see God.”
So why doesn’t God tell us more about what that life will be like? More details to whet our hopes for what is to come?
Remember the parables of the sower and the wheat/tares. The kingdom of heaven is like a crop of plants being grown on this earth. When Christ returns for judgment day, all harvested crops will be sorted, and the good fruits will be kept and the bad will be thrown away and burnt. We are being grown on this earth in preparation for use after the harvest.
Think of this earth then as a factory of sorts, or a school. We are being trained up in love and in faith. We are being grown here, and refined as with fire, in preparation for what’s to come next in paradise. Compared to eternity, it’s a very brief training stage, just as our years of school as children are quite brief and very different in comparison to the years we spend in “real life” after we graduate.
Whatever Words God has given us to ponder now, we know that it is “useful for training in righteousness” here and now.
I think that if God were to tell us more details about the future life we are being trained for, it would be counter-productive to our present training.
I know that for me at least, I would be tempted to start planning about what I will do in paradise, perhaps what kinds of roles I might want to fill. I would start thinking about my resurrection more in terms of what I am going to want for myself. Notice the emphasis: Me, me, me.
That is not what we are being trained for. We are being trained up in righteousness, in love and faith.
It makes sense then that the main detail God gives us about what is to come is that we are going to be inheriting God Himself. As God is one, so we will be one in Him, in His family, forever praising Him and forever united in love with each other through Christ. Notice the emphasis: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and being. Love your neighbor as yourself.
God is Love. We are to be in His image. That means that the emphasis cannot be on “Me, me, me.”
If God were to give me more details about what was in store for my life with my brothers and sisters in paradise, my selfishness would corrupt my hope of what I am looking forward to into something that was all about me. The focus of my eyes would shift away from God Himself and trust in Him.
So I must be content with the promise that my inheritance is God, and I must be trust my Creator to lead me and to determine what will be the best and most fitting use for me, and to love me and provide for my wants and needs through all. He did create me after all, and He is the one growing me.
Is that good enough for me?
Well now, it seems like that question is part of the training, isn’t it?