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Waiting For It
2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared;
but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him
as he is.
- I John 3:2
If my father still lived, this year he would be 117 years old. It seemed to me long ago that sometimes, as he looked at me, I could sense some doubt in him. Perhaps it was dread. In any case, I am sure that he was at least interested in how I might turn out. More than a few have remarked that I was a plain boy. Some, then, even had the temerity to call me a fat kid. I remember some fright in his eyes when I was thirteen and showing up at his table daily measuring six feet three inches in height and weighing a good two hundred and twenty pounds. I never grew at all after that age. I think my father was greatly relieved! Perhaps I was a bit encouraged also.
Now that I am more than eight decades old, I find myself alarmed at the confirmation of some of my worst fears: All of life’s physical metamorphosis is NOT confined to the growing-up process. Changes are still underway! None of them, at least from a temporal perspective, may be reckoned as good! I am not sure how many metrics may be legitimately applied to our various human physical attributes, but all of those that I have discovered and assessed related to myself are definitely in retrograde.
My generalized and undeniable decline brings me to unpleasant confrontation with some realities: I am unlikely to ever be a quarterback in the NFL. My life will end without my ever having been President of the United States. In retrospect, perhaps my aspirations of becoming a male model were always a bridge too far.
That said, our verse would inform that none of that really matters anyway. It is what I shall be in the spiritual harvest that really counts. My prospects there are extremely promising.
Whatever my genetic inheritance was, it certainly included some limitations. Christ has made all of the difference. I will then reap all the benefits of being a child of God. I will enter into the rest that He has prepared for me. The lion that roamed the earth seeking to devour me will be no more. The sin that was mine will be gone then - including the consequences. Everyone who meets me will love me. There will be no shortage of time. I will never tire. There will never again be a tearful parting.
Just what I will look like, I don’t know, but I am told WHO I will look like. I shall be as HE is!
Of course, I would like to know more. I’m sure, though, that all is just as it should be for the revelation and timing of all things is in the hand of God. I am just as certain, however, that this is all that I can know. The limitation is common to all: Because no human eye has seen the city, no ear has heard the footfalls of the saints upon the golden streets, and not one of the redeemed has ever even imagined it, there is no language to describe it. We all, therefore, must patiently, wait for it!
Oh yes, one more thing: Hair! There will be a lot of hair!
George Moore
Elder Emeritus
