HEAVEN LURES US

“So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.  But for Adam no suitable helper was found…Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man.  The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…”  Genesis 2: 20, 23

                For those who have lived awhile, we know we’ll never find it, but still we keep searching for it everywhere. It comes in different forms.  Sometimes the vision is so defined it’s almost palpable:   the dream of a fairytale romance, the quest for the perfect friend, wanderlust that takes us over oceans and back, hunger and thirst for the nectar and ambrosia of the gods and goddesses.   Other times it is a nebulous thing that wafts its elusive scent before our nostrils and disappears into the ethereal as quickly as it came, but we keep remembering what it was like to catch a whiff of it.  We think maybe next time we will be quick enough to snatch it to ourselves and at last be satisfied.  But we never are, and what’s more, we never will be— at least not the “we” we are right now. You may object and hold out as proof that time you went to Switzerland or that steak you had at that new restaurant or that Christmas Eve it snowed ten inches.  Yes, there are times that our grasp does equal our reach and reality actually does exceed expectation, but do any of these times last?

                It seems that in the Garden, God made a point of parading all those animals He had made before Adam.  Since it was Adam’s responsibility to name them, He knew Adam would have to study each one carefully, and maybe that’s just why He gave him that job: so that Adam would recognize his need.  He would look at them all and realize that his need was not for any of these, but for something, actually someone higher. 

                And so now, we have paraded into our lives people and experiences that each seem to be an opportunity for us to ask the same question:  Could he be the One?  Could this be the Time?  Is this, at last, that Place?  But we are always eventually disappointed, and our need is highlighted.  We know we must be good sports about it and be thankful for what we have, but we know it isn’t ideal.  We had something Higher in mind, whether we talk about it or not. 

                This may sound bleak and fatalistic, but it isn’t meant to.  Actually, it is very good news.  Because we can desire it, it is there …somewhere.  Malcolm Muggeridge said, “Because of our physical hunger, we know there’s bread; because of our spiritual hunger, we know there is Christ.” ¹ The desiring and dreaming and hungering and thirsting are not accidents or a sign that we are just inherently hard to please (well, in a way we are, but we were meant to be). It is God telling us there is a fulfillment. He tells us that He is a jealous God, and rightly so, unlike us when we are jealous.  God knows until we love Him most, we will be settling for something other than life.

 Robert Browning said, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”² That heavenly aroma is there to lure us to Him, to remind us of what is real, to whisper, or sometimes to shout, to each of us to follow our noses and soldier on.  What we are made for awaits us; we are in the process of readying ourselves for it.  It will take no less than a lifetime, but It will be worth every minute of it.

From Broken Jar: 365 Days on the Potter's Wheel (2012 Pottery Press)