As I was talking with my wife and as I read from a book a passage in the New Testament, I wondered if I’ve taken the word “eternal” too futuristically?
Therefore we do not lose hear. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor. 4:16-18)
When we think of “eternal glory,” immediately our mind races to heaven, the after-life place where we go if we are believers. But I wonder if there is not a present reality to the eternal glory. Could it not be true that tomorrow I will be more glorious than today? Could it be that the day-to-day renewal spoken of, that unseen and eternal glory, is building in our inner reality today? I cannot help but begin to wonder if today begins a new glorious realization, as each day should begin, rather than just getting on through the day and ending up “in glory [heaven].”
There is a battle going on, and without any hope of glory, we die. I struggle so much to see with “the eyes of the heart” because my mind has been programmed and conditioned to think more strongly than my heart feels. But the heart is the wellspring of life, says King Solomon, who no doubt knew what he had done to his heart as he turned from the Lord. If the heart is the wellspring, then the mind comes second. But what does that mean? I search and pray and discover that I cannot get beyond thinking about what that might mean, which puts me in a bind because if I can’t but think about the heart, than I certainly cannot begin to feel my heart in order to see through it. Make no mistake, I make decisions based on feeling rather than intellectual power, but when it comes to spiritual matters, it is difficult for me to actually live out of my heart.
I wonder what will happen when I finally learn how to trust God’s desire for me to live out of my heart. I want to. I know I need to. But I just don’t fully understand.
Maybe I don’t need to.
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