I’ve been struggling to write during this Covid19 crisis, struggling to read books, struggling to bring my thoughts together. Sometimes my thoughts have turned to heaven, and the promises we read about our eternal life with God – full of joy, with no more tears, pain, suffering. We see our world groaning, people dying and livelihoods sinking, and it’s hard not to long for those times when this will be no more.
Then we read this as part of our morning devotionals this week and something finally fell into place.
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean, was given to her to wear.”
Weddings are times of great celebration, but they almost never ‘just happen’! – great preparations are necessary (or at least desired) to bring together those we love to witness the joining in marriage of a couple in love. The party must be prepared, the wedding party dressed, and a host of little details brought together to make a memorable day. I know! Our son got married last September, and while, as the groom’s family, we came off quite lightly in the preparation stakes, there was an enormous amount of thought, effort and time put into making it a wonderful day.
In our society, the bride is very much the main focus of the day. What will she wear, how will she look? And so on…. Having been privileged to be part of the bridal preparations, I saw how the day began very early, and took time as my daughter-in -law to be was transformed from a beautiful girl in pyjamas into a glowing bride, ready to make the second biggest commitment of her life before God.
This is where my thoughts led as I mused on where I had jumped ahead of myself – I had been so busy focusing on the life to come that I had forgotten how much preparation there was to do to be ready for this time. Like any bride, I would not want to just turn up at my wedding without thought. The time for heaven is not yet, I’m changing my focus, there is much to do.
As the people of God, we are invited to spend this life preparing ourselves for this uniting with Jesus, the Lamb of God. We could just sit there and wait, go as we are, if you like, but there is a huge amount of work to be done, for although this may be symbolic language, we must be prepared to meet our Lord and Maker, and be ready to enter into that life with the glorious Trinitarian family. Life is my opportunity to become more of the person I was created to be in this life, and to be ready when the time comes to enter the next stage of life.
Maybe it helps me to have a goal like this – first to acknowledge that there are things that need to be done, changed, transformed. Secondly, that some of this will involve hard work, intentionality, commitment for the long haul, a willingness to change. Best of all though, I’m not responsible for doing all the work – this is a team effort. Jesus has already gone further than we could ever have imagined to make this possible, and we are not alone in our preparations. Not only do we have friends to journey with us, but we also have a companion, the Holy Spirit who is walking this road with us, helping us get ready for the day that will mark the start of the rest of our eternal lives with God.
I want to remind myself (daily if possible) that all these preparations are 100% worth it, so that when the day comes, I’ll be ready to enter fully into the joy.
From Tundra to Tropic 