Living On Eternity’s Threshold

“Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear... Many prophets and many of God’s people longed to see what you see but didn’t see it, to hear what you hear but didn’t hear it.”

~Matthew 13:16-17 (GW)

The great and significant difference between the person who believes in God and the person who doesn’t is perception. Not that we choose to see or hear; we cannot but see or hear. Perception is a matter of fact. And such perceptions—sight and sound—are how God communicates. This faith-life is real! An open mind and an open heart are blessed.

God has communicated this Gospel into our lives.

With what we know—the terrific salvation in the name of Jesus, and the grace that is borne on, over and through us in his name—we happily sit in the midst of a throng, gently, serenely, poised on eternity’s doorstep. Eternity—for us—awaits.

We live this day on the threshold of eternity; we all do.

And presently we have eternal life, in Jesus.

Appreciating the Fleeting Passage of Time and Life

Time is something we take for granted; it is a very human thing to do. But one of the urgent mandates of living saved-to-the-Gospel is that we come to appreciate the tenuousness of life, because we see life in the context of eternity.

It could be one heartbeat or hundreds of millions before we breathe our last. Our plans could come to fruition or they might falter at the first step. We may even achieve far more than we could ever hope to achieve. This latter state is more probable.

Besides all this uncertainty is the fact that eternity stalks us. We never know when that light-filled passage might occur; when the passage of time—fleeting as it is—splutters to a stop for want of biological fuel.

When we cease to be a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ and we come to become comprehensively a spiritual being—and we are a memory—our life force, here, is spent. Then we are with God... for eternity—beyond the finite realm of time.

Coming to appreciate life on eternity’s threshold holds us to a magnificent proposal. We begin to see more and more, and our ‘hearing’ becomes salaciously acute. We see things more as God would see them. Meaning and purpose take on a fresh significance.

As we are challenged to live on this cusp of time, to the most of our appreciative abilities, we enjoy time with our loved ones. We enjoy the process of learning. We even appreciate the temerity of pain. Everything has meaning and significance, especially the little things.

Real life, eternal life, is really a lot different to how it appears.

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Appreciating the simple things and learning to see and hear are the objects of living on eternity’s threshold. We never know when life will be over. This frames our lives in thankfulness, purpose, and meaning. We make the most of life as a result.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.