Now or Later?
Today’s reading from “The Imitation of Christ”1 suggests:
Whatever I can desire or imagine for my own comfort I look for not here but hereafter.
Dan Kimball says one of the common complaints he hears from those who like Jesus but not the church2 is how Christians rail on about the afterlife. It’s all about getting to heaven. I do look forward to the next life but also believe that I’m called into a new way of life right now and that this life is not devoid of joy. It is true that this life has hardship and pain but I can’t go so far as to say that there is no comfort nor any delight whatsoever in this life.
For if I alone should have all the world’s comforts and could enjoy all its delights, it is certain that they could not long endure. Therefore, my soul, you cannot enjoy full consolation or perfect delight except in God, the Consoler of the poor and the Helper of the humble. Wait a little, my soul, wait for the divine promise and you will have an abundance of all good things in heaven.
True enough. At least for me, one day this present life will cease, along with it all the joys and sorrows as I presently experience them.
If you desire these present things too much, you will lose those which are everlasting and heavenly. Use temporal things but desire eternal things. You cannot be satisfied with any temporal goods because you were not created to enjoy them.
What! Was God’s creation not good?3 We’re we not given stewardship of creation to care for and enjoy?4 Is this life and all of creation a prison doomed to destruction that we must escape? This thinking leads to the concept that we are saved for heaven rather than for God. I think rather that we are being called into a new way of life that includes both now and later.
