For those of you who know me well, you know that I'm a planner. I like to know what's going to happen today, tomorrow, and next week. Don't get me wrong, sometimes spontaneity can be fun...but for the most part I crave a sense of normalcy in my life.
So far this semester, that sense of normalcy has been hard to come by. I feel like the word that best describes these past couple weeks for me is BUSY. My schedule is different every day, and I can't seem to establish any semblence of a routine. In short, I feel like I've been in a perpetual state of transience.
But my perspective on all of this changed while I was talking with a friend about an hour ago. He asked me "Wanna know what made me super happy?" I was expecting a simple answer: something good for dinner, not much homework for the night, or maybe having seen a good friend at Wednesday night church. Instead he told me about the really awesome worship of our great God that he'd gotten to experience earlier at youth group. They'd sung the song Amazing Grace. He then forwarded me the text of my very favorite verse of that 18th century hymn:
"When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise,
Than when we first begun"
As I read those sweet, familiar words my face broke out into the biggest smile. I haven't stopped smiling yet, for in a simple text message from a friend from back home and in the words of a hymn that's been around for more than two centuries, my God spoke clearly and decisively to me--bringing me peace in my situation.
When I stopped to think for a moment about the joyous eternal worship that I'll someday partake in, my feelings of transience began to seem perfectly natural rather than unsettling. Truthfully, this is exactly the way I should be feeling--not just about this semester of college though. I should be feeling this same inability to settle in when it comes to the whole of my existence on this earth.
This is just my temporary home. I was created for so much more than this. With this in mind, it really would be a tragedy to be satisfied with anything less than Christ. It would be a tragedy to settle for earth. I am not fully happy here because I am not home here. I am not fully happy here because I am not suppposed to be fully happy here. Greater and glorious things that will fulfill my heart's desires await me.
Of course on earth, I'll get to experience some joy: I feel a portion of God's goodness in the warmth of His sunshine. I see a sliver of his glory in the majesty of his creation. I catch a glimpse of His love in time I spend with sweet friends. And I taste a bit of His grace each time I sinfully stumble and He patiently draws me close again.
But while I'm here, the joy I experience can never measure up to the glory of what awaits me as a redeemed child of Christ. It is only right for me to feel this sense of transience that has overwhelmed these past two weeks for me, because as 1 Peter 2:11 explains, we are "like foreigners and strangers in this world." I'm only passing through this life on my way to something greater: unbroken communion with and worship of my savior and king.
Tonight I've come to realize that I'm homesick. Not homesick for Birmingham where I was born and raised, but homesick for my real home--where I'll be there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, and I'll have no less days to sing God's praise, than when I first begun. It's going to be wonderful, and tonight I'm so excited that I can't stop smiling.
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