Today’s reading: 2 Samuel 2; 2 Corinthians 5
It struck me today just how much my perspective has changed to align with Paul’s over the years when I read his statement in 2 Corinthians 5, “[We] would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”
Reading this reminded me of a study I was part of early on in my Christian life out of Philippians where Paul makes essentially the same comment. Most of us in that bible study were fairly new Christians and I remember some of the guys going back and forth about whether or not they could really feel this way. I said at the time that I understood it, because just being a Christian means you really have to agree with the reality of the statement, but it was purely an intellectual/theoretical stance. As much as I had to agree with the statement theologically, I very much did not feel that way, and just thought of all the things in this life that I wouldn’t want to miss out on, even if Heaven would theoretically be better.
Even a few years after that, I remember teaching that passage in our small group and it was largely the same. I unabashedly taught what Paul said and argued that that should be our mentality because it is the reality of the situation, but I still very much did not feel that truth in my heart.
But today? Today I yearn for Heaven…
There are so many things that play into it, but the two biggest things that have changed this perspective for me are sin and the brokenness of this world. The longer I walk with the Lord and the more of myself I want to give over to Him, the more I am faced with just how deeply sinful and rebellious my heart is. I often find myself longing for the day when I can relate to my Heavenly Father in sinless perfection; where there is nothing at all between us and I can experience His love as fully as He has always intended from the moment He created humanity. The more sinful I realize I am, the more I long to be away from this body and home with the Lord. But a similar thing can also be said for how broken the world is. The older I get, and the more I experience, the more I am faced with just how broken this world is. Even more so now that I have kids, and I am trying to figure out how to explain things to them that are so far outside of God’s design and desire, but are now part of everyday life. I feel like I regularly find myself praying with John in Revelation 22, “Lord Jesus, come quickly!”
There is more to it than just those two, but they are definitely the biggest areas that draw this out in me apart from any particular study or passage. There is probably a big portion though in it too of just knowing the Lord better and trusting more in His goodness, that drives me to want to be with Him more and more.
It just really struck me this morning how much my thinking on this has changed in the last almost 15 years. Yes, I want to be here and available for my wife and my children, and sure, there are things I would love to do and experience in this life, but still, when I read Paul’s words today, he gets nothing but a hearty “Amen!” from me, and that’s about as far from where I started out as I could be.
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