An anticipated rest.

There is a winding road in upper lower Michigan that takes many anxious vacationers to the beautiful dune lined shores of Lake Michigan. As you travel west on this road over the hilly terrain, the many dips are over taken by many more climbs which cause your car to gradually rise and rise some more until at one single point you are so high you can see Lake Michigan far off in the distance.  You know are still many miles away, you guess it may be twenty or so, but it could be further. For a brief instant your eyes take in the vast blanket of blue water blending into the azure horizon very far off. It is a breathtaking view, before you can stop and enjoy it, as soon as you take your next breath, the road immediately drops beneath you and you find yourself back under the dark canopy of tall pines. You steel your resolve and drive harder for what seems like eternity as you try to patiently endure the rest of the trip.  Gritting your teeth through each twist and turn, you rise and fall as if you are in the front car of a rollercoaster, except this one you are responsible to navigate along the treacherous serpentine track.  Every bend frustrates your strengthening desire to just drive due west. That frustration and anxiety tighten your grip on the wheel, tense the muscles in your gas pedal leg, and encourage your thrust as you imagine yourself driving your little chariot directly into the sharpened shadows of the trees, as if charging the cheval de fries in a great battle to “take the lake” in the name of Vacation.

Focused on the triumph of arriving, you may not even notice that something of the beach has already gently crept into the vehicle. An aura, a feeling, a sense of the shore has slowly enveloped your surroundings. You may not even realize that the air has gotten cooler, the sun seems gentler, and the unmistakable marine air has gradually invaded the air conditioning system. You know! You know, not by sight, but by all your other senses that you are certainly getting closer to the lake. There are times along the trek while climbing a high and difficult hill, you hope upon cresting it you may catch another quick assuring glimpse of the water, but you never do. Hill after hill, it’s always the same view on the other side; more road, more trees. It’s not until the adrenaline begins to fade, and you start to be resigned to the drudgery of the drive that you smirk around another bend just like the previous thousand, and suddenly realize that you have arrived only a few short feet from the sandy shore.  

Arriving at your long-awaited destination, the trial of the trip instantly fades. You turn off the AC and roll down the windows. Your aching muscles, over-tensed by hours of anticipation, melt into emancipation. The drone of the road noise is replaced by the welcoming cries of gulls and the peaceful splashing of the waves against the beach. The young passengers of your car instantly stop crying as complaints turn into cheers and boredom gives way to excitement. Body odor, stinky socks, and the stench of stale fast-food are swept out of the open car doors, replaced by the unmistakable fragrance of Lake Michigan air. Everything shouts vacation! The trauma of the past few hours disappears; instantly forgotten being cast into the icy blue depths of the lake (Micah 7:19). Your whole focus changes; you cannot wait to change clothes and wet your knees in the clear refreshing waters of rest and relaxation. This has been my experience; maybe it has been yours too.

I have taken a life lesson from that experience realizing that much of what we encounter from day to day is very similar. By Faith in the risen Christ Jesus, our Loving Father has given us a brief glimpse of our final rest, a coup d'oeil of that vast blue blanket of heavenly bliss. From the vantage point of being raised-from-the-dead in Christ, standing on The High Rock of new birth, we are briefly awed by the splendor and grandeur of imputed righteousness and eternal life in the Kingdom of God.  But then, without warning, the road dips and the trees rise quickly around us, shadows encompass us, the pressures of life oppose us, and for the rest of our earthly trek we press harder on life’s accelerator knowing that we are approaching what we cannot see, but by faith still know with certainty. Unsure of how long it will take us to get there, we are tempted to become bored, discouraged, or succumb to a complacency that borders on apathy. Our frustrated anxiety may even cause us to see how easy it is to act like children and begin to fight among ourselves; throwing cold french-fries in the face our brother or sister, or surreptitiously taking up more room on the seat than is legally ours just to aggravate someone else in an effort to relieve our own tedium.

But we are also the driver; we are supposed to be leaders, examples, models of hope. We pray, we hope, and we try to encourage others while disguising our own personal angst. We intentionally remember that glimpse of heaven; we feel the bread melt afresh on our tongue, we sip anew the purple cup, and we urge our own minds to be re-motivated by that hope. His Hope enables in us a better attitude than one of servile endurance of our parochial hardships. Our hope actually transforms us; renews our mind to actually relish our sufferings, bringing us to a frame of mind that actually delights in traveling the difficult road to glory. Counting it a high privilege, we consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us when we reach the sandy shore.  (Romans 8:18) We have seen our goal; we are fully assured (Col 4:12). We know are well packed; our beachwear is waiting for us to put it on (2 Corinthians 5:2). “… flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, this is a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.”  (1 Corinthians 15:50-52) Our road is long, but not interminable. We are assured there is a bend in the road that, even though it may look like all the others, when we come around that final one we will be instantly changed. Everything will change when we are greeted with our great reward, “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”

“The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15:53-58)

Sweet victory in Christ, on the sandy-soft shore of His Love, clothed in His eternal righteousness. 

Can you smell the Lake air? Can you feel the enveloping heavenly environment? Are you excited? It will not be too much longer now.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor (your patience) is not in vain in the Lord.