After The Work

As a child, I would stand on the shores of Lake Michigan and marvel at how big the body of water was. I was told there was Milwaukee on the other side, so I would squint really hard to see if I could see the buildings or maybe where the Brewers played baseball. The water seemed to stretch on for eternity. It was difficult to take on face value that there was indeed an entire state opposite of Michigan across the waters.

As we grow older with experience, we eventually get to see for ourselves the other side of the lake. Perhaps if we are fortunate we have even taken a ferry or flew in a plane from shore to shore. One gets a sense of how far the waters stretch and the time required to cross that body of water. We marvel at ancient peoples who braved the waters of a Great Lake or even the oceans and discovered new lands guided only by the stars.

Life can often seem long, our problems and concerns stretching over time and spaces that seem uncrossable. We squint and ponder what the future might hold. We are told that life has purpose, or that there will be an end to our troubles, but like a child at times we cannot comprehend it. It is only through learning and experience do we begin to grasp the width, breadth, and depth of our burdens. We learn that like the waters, there will be an end to our troubles and even our good times.

Facing life after death can evoke similar feelings. We are told that the soul lives on, that our love, our memories, our relationships endure after we pass on–but we are but children in comparison to Eternity. We have taken wise words about lakes and burdens by faith in the past, but the ultimate journey beyond life takes another leap all together.

2nd Corinthians 4:16-18 helps put our present trials into perspective: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

What is unseen we are told is eternal. Our true “Gold”, our strength, our love, our hopes, relationships, personality, and what makes us “us” is a concept entity. We cannot grasp it in hand, but it is non the less real. Just as those things are unseen and eternal, God embodies what makes the human soul “us” and eternal. We join this Great Reality by faith, where human reason ends and eternity begins.

We are told to have hope for the future, even past our deaths. We, eternal children, may not comprehend its width, breadth, and depth, but through our experience and faith we will gain this perspective. This life is but a forge for the soul that refines out the temporal, animal, and selfish sides of us to bring us into the life to come. We carry with us our hopes, experiences, relationships, and love. They exist beyond ourselves in the hearts of those we touch on this side of “the lake” and are carried Forever beyond Forever.

We say “what if it is not true?” “Can it be real if it cannot be proved?” The ancient peoples settling the Pacific sailed not by globes, but by the stars and their courageous faith that there was a better beyond found through the waves. They were guided without guarantees, but by faith and hope. Such courageous faith was rewarded with new discovery. Imagine if they never set sail? Is not Eternity but another voyage to embark upon? Shall we not venture forth with faith as they? We find the journey itself is valuable and Eternal and if we find there is nothing on the other side, did we not live life and life in full? It stands to reason, then, that if we are guided by the Word into Eternal waves that we too will be rewarded both in the journey and the Destination.