“Messengers from Eden”

These days I have become increasingly intentional about carving out more time for God because it’s so easy to lose it when we give the world and its ways the car keys and let it drive us.

As I explore my adoptive country, I now use the ferries mostly to go between the islands; so rather than a one- hour journey at 900 miles per hour in an aluminium tube at 30 thousand feet, my most recent trip was 60 hours at a steady 19 knots with no WiFi, mostly no cell service, an audio book about eternity and my rosary beads.

It was wonderful and as each day unfolded I was surrounded with messengers from Eden as reminders of who we are and our destiny. On the seas, aside from the vessel I was stood on, there were no man made objects to be seen; everything else pointed to heaven. The sun rose over calm endless seas, the sky and clouds moving toward a far horizon, blazing sunsets and thunderstorms displaying the majesty of God and his creative energy. And the moon and stars are a finale. All new every morning and as my soul settled into it I could feel the ache in the heart at what we lost in Eden and a great hope for what was yet to come in eternity, when all things are made new (Rev 21:5 Then the one who sits on the throne said, "And now I make all things new!")

I heard a speaker ask an awkward question once after he quoted a scripture from Peter 3:15 ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’. And then he asked, “when was the last time someone came up to give in the supermarket, grabbed you by the arms and demanded to know the reason for your hope ? I have never been asked either. We don’t often think about what it is we hope for. Forgiveness, a not too unpleasant death perhaps, but eternity is a long haul, what then ? Often times we feel that life has passed us by, missed opportunities or maybe no opportunities, unable to follow a particular dream or develop a particular talent, the many losses we take as we see loved ones die or friendships end. Well the good news is we get everything we lost back, better then ever, perfected and permanent and a mansion in heaven !

We will do everything we were born to do, and whilst our minds cannot contain such thoughts it will be good, it will be worth the wait, worth the current and future sufferings. What awaits us is Eternal Joy when the voyage is over.