Everyone remembers the line from the great 90's movie "Jerry Maguire." When Tom Cruise's character sees Renee Zellweger in the living room he tells her, "You complete me." And women across America swooned. From that point on, many teenage girls wanted men to complete them. Men have searched for the same. The problem is that at some point, a love interest will fail us and we will remain incomplete.
Well, unfortunately, our lives are not as easy as the movies make them out to be. We will forever be incomplete. There are pieces of ourselves that make us feel more whole. There are people that fill us up fuller than we were before. If you don't believe me you either don't have kids or your kids are terrible human beings, well, maybe you are the terrible human. Kids fill our hearts. Activities fill us. Not just our schedule, but our soul. I haven't danced since middle school, but I have begun dancing again (not just in my living room) and a part of me is restored. I can no longer sing the way I used to (not that I was that great to begin with) and I feel that piece of me dying. It's frustrating. We know how we should be to be whole, and yet it never lines up. Marriages are supposed to bring fullness in our lives, but even there we find faults and failures that take away from who we once were, or who we are meant to be. There will be times of feeling full to overflowing and times of emptiness seeking to fill us and renew us. You may be looking at this saying, "What a terrible idea?" Or perhaps you looked at the brief ideas above and said, "Naturally you cannot be full there." And yet, there is more to all of this than we are even seeing. If you are walking with God, you know that he is the only true sustainer. The marriage is depicted of what our relationship with God should be within the church. He sends us the Holy Spirit to comfort, guide, and intercede, among other things. So why aren't we feeling complete? Since Adam and Eve decided to try a particular fruit to gain knowledge, we have had sin. Yes, their eyes were opened, and now we can never close ours. There is a deep and profound longing to get away from this earth and sin. Our souls long for this peace that never seems to come. Even Paul wrote that he would rather die in his flesh to see the Father face to face, but he endures his earthly life for those in his surroundings. If the greatest apostle could want to get out of here, why wouldn't we? Humankind will never feel the full completeness until heaven is restored. Somewhere in our biblical studies we decided that heaven is in the clouds and unattainable until we perish in our earthly bodies. There are bits and pieces here and there that are in fact true. We do see Jesus ascending to the clouds. We will need to remove our flesh. But take a look at Jesus' prayer when he teaches the disciples to pray - Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Why would he pray for heaven to come to earth if we are supposed to go up to heaven? Hmm. Confounding. WE should be bringing heaven to earth. Every day is a battle. We can either sit and wait for our deaths and let everyone else have the fun, or we can get up and fight. Fight against the hell on earth to bring heaven on earth. Think of all the ways that hell is winning in these times - infidelity, sex trafficking, drugs, alcoholism, rebellion, starvation, persecution. How can we, right now, put out the flames of hell to bring heaven to earth?! Now, why don't we feel complete? Perhaps it is because completion cannot come until heaven is restored, earth is restored, and we are restored. And I do believe that we will feel more and more complete to our very core when we begin to bring heaven back to earth and walk with God in the restoration that will come at the trumpet blast.
1 Comment
Marybeth Wishart
7/4/2019 10:14:07 am
Thank you for this reminder. This also reminds me of something I recently watched. Not sure if you've seen The Bible Project videos which are short videos on books of the bible and various topics. The one I am referring to is "Heaven and Earth".
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