Heaven Doesn't Fit

Ever feel like you’re just not hitting the target? Like you’re not in the right groove? Like you don't fit, no matter how hard you try?

I’m noodling around this morning and it occurs to me that I cannot make my homeland fit where I am now. I try so hard, but I never succeed in making my earthly existence match my heavenly birthplace. The two simply don’t get along. They are not at all simpatico.

God has often convinced me that I am no longer of this world. And He should know, since He’s the one who changed me. He’s the one who included me in Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection (Romans 6), making me a new creation with an entirely new way to live. There are actually days on end when I am convinced it’s all true.

Cool.

And then there are days when either I forget, or I succumb to the conspiracy. You know the one. Daily living can be such a circus of stress and longing and fun and sadness and hope and disappointment and opportunity and rejection and indigestion that my new identity—citizen of heaven—seems a platitude at best.

Hey, Ralph! Here are some of your new identity titles: New creation. Son of God. Alien. Co-laborer. How 'bout that, huh?

And all I feel is a big, fat, So what! That and $4 will get me a triple grande latte. At least that’s how it seems.

Anyway, this morning I am once again convinced about what Paul knew: But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:20,21)

I’m not sure how it happened, I’m not certain how the veil over my eyes was lifted to reveal the real me, but I’m glad it did. I suspect the Spirit has been snooping around, doing that revelation/transformation thing again. He’s pretty good at that.

Good thing.