Life as it was Meant to Be: The Haunting of the Sacred Romance

Do you ever get that feeling of overwhelming awe? Or do you ever get that sense of things all coming together at the right place at the right time and a sweeping emotion of "everything is right" comes over you?

It might happen at a picture-perfect sunset. It could happen when your favorite team overcomes all odds and wins the championship. It happened to me at the birth of all three of our children when I got to see and hold them for the first time.

These are moments in our lives when we realize either consciously or sub-consciously that there is something deeper, more meaningful, more permanent than life as we know it. Eldredge and Curtis says this is the "haunting of the Sacred Romance." In other words, these are snapshots of the true story that we all are living; the life God has planned for us from the beginning of time. I call it "glimpses" of "life as it was meant to be."

From the cradle to the grave, we are all on a journey. And the journey is not just about this small, insignificant life we live here on earth. It is about eternity and a life forever with our Creator-Lover who has made us and called us according to His purposes.

Our lives at best here on earth are dim shadows of who we really are and forerunners of who we are to become. The great enemy, Satan, would like nothing more for us to believe that our short stories here on earth are the ultimate reality. In fact, that is how he lures many of us away from the Sacred Romance. He convinces us that what we are experiencing here and now is the best that it is ever going to get. So, we just settle...

I challenge you to remember today, that the best of the best that you and I experience here on earth can never compare to the worst in the Kingdom to come. My imagination is too small when I think of eternity with God. I sometimes think, "C'mon, there has to be more than attending an eternal worship service (not that this is totally bad)..."

Imagine the greatest elation/joy that you have felt in this life. Multiply that by one million and think, "Gee, this is what God has planned for me for eternity."

The next time you or I are moved by a great story, stirred by some great music, touched by a scene in nature, or just given a moment of rapture, I hope we take time to reflect that this is just a taste of what God has prepared for us.

The wise writer of Ecclesiastes says that, "He (God) has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

Today, give thanks to God when He gives you glimpses of how life was meant to be. Also, celebrate that one day, for those who know His Son Jesus as Lord and Savior, all of life will be like that moment and immeasurably more than you or I could ask or imagine.

Selah!