“I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun—(in the ‘already and not yet’), than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.” Eccles. 8:15
Dear Jesus, thank you for being honest about what we are to expect life to “feel” like between your resurrection and return. As we head towards the Day of all things new, we still inhabit a cosmos of all-things-broken, as your beloved with new but yet-to-be-perfected hearts.
Life “under the sun” is shorthand for a life of the “already and not yet”—firstfruits of glory and frustrations from the Fall. Your Kingdom has already arrived in part, but not yet fully as it will be. Beauty and brokenness, magnificence and messiness, fun and fury will co-exist and co-mingle until you return.
The same vocation, friendship, marriage, parent-child relationship that yields moments of great joy and deep affection will generate painful irritation and sizeable disconnect until “the Day.” To accept this reality can rescue us from unrealistic expectations and fuel patient hope. To ignore this will make us miserable, and miserable to live with.
Fortunately, in our “toil and life under the sun,” you have a wonderful habit of blessing us with sovereign and spontaneous blessings we didn’t see coming. Unexpected “grace-bombs” get dropped on us from heaven at just the right time. Out-of-season daffodils break through frozen ground, Spirit-kisses from the Scriptures landing on our weary hearts—meals with friends that whisper “The wedding feast of the Lamb is coming”—tightlines with big trout dancing and shouts of, “Fish on!”, reverberating.
Pain-free, disappointment-void, all-brokenness-gone days will fill our eternity. Until then, your give us everything we need, Jesus, and more. The “not yet” will arrive right on time. So Very Amen.