I'm a walking contradiction. On the one hand, I want things to go well for me. On the other hand, with success and notoriety comes more responsibility, more accountability, more scrutiny, more trouble. I want to arrive somewhere, but I want to fly under the radar at the same time. I love sincere compliments
(I love it when you tell me that my work has changed your life, that you watch the show faithfully with your coffee in the morning, and that this channel is a lifeline for you in a wicked eon), but on the other hand, when building-up turns to fawning, I squirm a little bit and will say something like, "Let's change the subject for awhile." Let me be the subject for five minutes (thank you very much, I need it), then on to the predicate.
I think we are so used to being low, unknown, unnoticed, and under-appreciated, that when the opposite things come we get startled into reticence and reflexively draw back into our comfort zones.
I have crawled out of my comfort zone many times—driving to
Cleveland for five weeks in 1999 to do the live Grace Cafe radio program was one of these times, quitting the Postal Service to do this work full time was certainly another—and I'm always thankful, in the end, to have peered out from my groundhog hole. But it comes with a price, eh?
Too MUCH of a good thing is always bad. At least for now. "Everything,
all the time" is a lyric from the Eagles' song, "Life in the Fast Lane," and even one of the most popular musical groups of all time paints it as a bad thing. And yet, "everything, all the time' is precisely what God is going to give us when we are snatched away.
As presently constituted with flesh and blood bodies, we could not handle
"everything, all the time." We would literally die of pleasure. This is the practical reason why our bodies must be changed. Our new bodies will be built to accept and sustain the glory that is rightfully ours through Christ.
In Philippians 3:12, Paul relates how he had to learn to both abound and be abased. I think abounding might have been the harder
lesson for Paul. Maybe for us too? We tend to think, "I'm not worthy" or, 'I want neither the notoriety nor the responsibility of fame." Well, don't worry. God has built in ceilings to even the greatest pleasures on earth so that when you do get too much, you vomit it out.
This will not be a problem when we rise to meet the Lord in the air. Then, our
bodies will sustain and appreciate, with room to spare, supernal glory. We will not only accept but expect the worship of ancient, celestial magistrates—all due to Christ. Christ Himself will see to our change so that we, like Him, might bask in God's version of "everything, all the time." Maybe it's about time?
