Psalm 22:23-31
I don’t know what eternal life is like, and I’ve always resisted efforts to describe it, because no one knows – and any attempts to do so make it sound eternally boring. I remember hearing about the Anglican Bishop who said that he wasn’t sure he wanted to go to heaven because he heard there was no debating there! The psalmist who praises the God who is above time, and active within it, doesn’t speculate about these things. It is about promise and blessing: “The poor shall eat and be satisfied; (and) those who seek him shall praise the Lord.” That’s the promise, and we have a hand in it. Meeting the needs of the poor, and longing to be in God’s presence, leads to praise. The blessing follows – “May your hearts live forever.” Those who extend their hearts to others, and give their hearts to God, know something already of eternity. In scripture the “heart” is the core of who we are, and the love of God, whose heart breaks for us, will never let us go.
I love the quote from the Catholic writer on spirituality, John Shea, who in one of his poems wrote: “The struggle is the goal; the search is what we know. All the rest is heaven.”
I don’t know what eternal life is like, and I’ve always resisted efforts to describe it, because no one knows – and any attempts to do so make it sound eternally boring. I remember hearing about the Anglican Bishop who said that he wasn’t sure he wanted to go to heaven because he heard there was no debating there! The psalmist who praises the God who is above time, and active within it, doesn’t speculate about these things. It is about promise and blessing: “The poor shall eat and be satisfied; (and) those who seek him shall praise the Lord.” That’s the promise, and we have a hand in it. Meeting the needs of the poor, and longing to be in God’s presence, leads to praise. The blessing follows – “May your hearts live forever.” Those who extend their hearts to others, and give their hearts to God, know something already of eternity. In scripture the “heart” is the core of who we are, and the love of God, whose heart breaks for us, will never let us go.
I love the quote from the Catholic writer on spirituality, John Shea, who in one of his poems wrote: “The struggle is the goal; the search is what we know. All the rest is heaven.”
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