The Reconstructed

The alleviation of suffering, the elimination of things cursed, the visible light and throne of God and the acess to life eternal from a once guarded Tree. And Jesus himself saying He is coming soon. This is the culmination of Revelation 22. The end has a new incomprehensibly delightful begininng.

When I had previosuly echoed the cry of Spirit and Bride for the Lord to come, I usually prayed with a subconscious sense that I was young and desired to live through the parts of life I thought would be exciting and full of hope and joy. I eagerly prayed for Christ’s return while thinking I’d live through successful seasons of ministry and marriage and perhaps eventual martyrdom. I imagined the trajectory of my faith as one always energized toward ascension.

What I did not account for or conclude was how many and with such frequency, wounds would come and how faithful they would feel when they’d come from friends or the family of God. And the depth of pain that I have felt directed at my heart has been harrowing to the point where most days my faith has taken on a timid posture. I am guarding my final coin, afraid to show my card, fragile not in the person of Jesus, but in confidence that I am indeed kept. I am a seed who was one a tree planted by water, and I thought I was pruned only to find what I do hardly seems to prosper, appears to have withered which adds to a sense of guilt over my responsibility over it all.

It is not a secret that I am affected by own sin, but what remains a mystery to me is the sense that the Spirit has placed me at arms length in a similar way to the very body of Christ that has given me the impression that there is no place left for me. I have been wounded by working these vineyards, these field white for the harvest, and it has not been by the lost. It has been by those supposing to be found, supposing to shepherd, supposing to offer family and belonging only to be given up on. And thankfully this is not the picture of Heaven.