God gives us heartache, sorrow, and failure in life to remind us that the paradise that we all long for is not this world, but the World to Come: when all the desires of our hearts will be fulfilled in the brilliant vision of His Face, and the warmth of His divine embrace. Every experience of earthly joy is meant to raise our minds to that eschatological hope of perfect Joy. And every experience of earthly joy cannot escape the reality of its own transitoriness, it's own impermanence, it's own unreality. Earthly joy is only a shadow of that perfect Joy of the Kingdom Come.
God gives us heartache, pain, and grief in this world, so that we will learn not to put our trust in princes and the sons of men, but in God, who is in truth our only hope. God gives us dissatisfaction with mundane things, so that we will be able to cast aside the riches destroyed by moth and rust. God grants us abandonment by women and friends, so that we will be able to make ourselves eunuchs for His Kingdom. God gives us tears, so that we may know what it means for every tear to be wiped away.
And the merciful God grants us the gift of retrospection, so that in the midst, or at the end, of our sorrowful life, we may be able to look back and see with clarity the meaning of it all, the sweetness of it all: the beauty of this grand meta-narrative of our salvation. Every tear, and every moment of pain and abandonment, we see working for our good, towards that Happy Ending, filled with joy, and warmth, and light, and eternal splendour...
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1 comments:
Something I've heard and read so many times but is always fresh and new at every future recognition. Thanks = )
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