A Marvelous Prospect

I’m mostly a night person, but I find the early mornings better for doing my daily Centurions “devotional” studies. Day-in and day-out I am blessed by the richness of God’s word for us. More so than ever before.

What does that have to do with coffee? Just this. I like good coffee. For years I would get up just in time to brush my teeth and head off to work, brewing myself a press of coffee once I arrived at work. Each sip was good. Now, I’m brewing my coffee and having it while I do my daily studies at home. Of late, I find myself in the evenings looking forward to the next morning’s coffee.I don’t think about the good stuff I’m going to learn. (Hmmm.) I think of the pleasure of that cup of coffee. It’s a good feeling – makes me look forward to getting up early. I didn’t have this anticipation when I had the coffee at work, so it is perhaps the combination of the coffee and the studies – “morning’s work.”

So what does that have to do with eternity? We have a hard time comprehending what eternity is going to be like. “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun…” gives us the willies, if we’re honest about it. Jokes abound about sitting around strumming harps forever – how boring! Let me give you something to consider, to chew on. This might be beyond comprehension for you younger readers (older folks can grasp it), so you’ll just have to take it on faith.

Routine is not bad. We cannot become slaves to it, but it’s not bad. I can look forward to that morning pot of coffee because I have a routine going. When I get up tomorrow morning, I’m going to delight in that hot cup. There is no appetite involved either (appetites are physical needs we like to satisfy – hunger, sex, …), just an anticipated pleasure. I also look forward to my morning routine of reading, inspecting the garden (maybe pulling a few weeds), listening to the birds. This is different from the crush of business and work and busy-ness. It is all purposeful, but in a different way.

Now, what if eternity were like that? Each day providing a particular pleasure and an anticipation of that pleasure repeated? What could be better? I could live with that for a long, long time.

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Postscript – Wouldn’t it be ironic if our human trait of “being built for eternity,” for pleasure in the presence of God, were the facet of our lives that Satan uses so effectively to destroy us through addictions? A close friend of mine said of her husband, “All he thinks about is his next hit of coke.” His life, and that of those around him, has been destroyed by that anticipation of pleasure and the need to fulfill it outside an intimate love-relationship with God.

1. Crystal says:

   July 9, 2009 at 6:09 PM

   But John, you didn’t say anything about how that coffee sounded as it was pouring into the cup! I’m listening! Tall cups make the most music!