glimpse

if i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that i was made for another world.  ~ c.s. lewis, mere christianity 

our world is full of pain, suffering, and heartache...  

whether we turn on the tv or pick up a newspaper, the world seems seems to be convincing us that this is true.  bombs, poverty, trials, hunger, racism, rape... all evidence to convict the world of its evil nature.  cars crash and so has the stock market... natasha has no home, grandma forgets, and the doctors can't find a cure.   all around us, everyday, we are bombarded with the fact that this is not how its suppose to be.  surely we were made for more?  mark driscol, pastor of mars hill church in seatle, says that life here, on earth, is the closest christians will ever be to hell.  and i think he's right.  we experience, i think its safe to say daily, hell on earth.  its easy, even as believers, to focus on the tragedy that is our world.  but i think just as we experience hell on earth, we also have the chance to experience heaven on earth.  glimpses of how the world should be.  before the fall.  when all was good.  naked and unashamed... as it was in the garden. 

im convinced that we have these glimpses... even in the midst of our broken world. 

we encounter love that goes beyond the world.  its during these special, sacred time that we are experiencing the Jesus in each other.  paul says the mystery, the secret of life is Jesus in us.  it may be through a wife's smile, a father's embrace, the beauty of a mother holding her own, a friend's words, or a stranger's help... whatever, whenever, however... we must take the time to seek heaven on earth, because if we believe paul then we have to trust that in our interactions with other followers of Christ, we bump into the same Rabbi as the bleeding woman or blind bart.  heaven is a place far greater than our thinking, where beauty trumps and life is how it was intended, and since that day in the garden, when man ate of the forbidden tree, we have lived life apart from heaven... we have lived in what sometimes must resemble hell, yet the if we look closely we can still see the glimpses of the beauty that will one day reign again...