Anticipation of Glory

I was doing some thinking today about anticipation -- of upcoming video games I look forward to, of our baby who's less than a month away from being born, of the summer, what have you. People are separate from the rest of the animal kingdom in that we don't just live in the now, we live for the future as well. We look at the horizon and hope.

Paul's statement that "To live is Christ and to die is gain" goes against the grain of secular thought -- why should he look forward to dying? To die means the end, the final act, the forever separation from all that you knew and had and did. And yet, to the Christian, death is but a graduation to a much better life, a severing of the pain of this world and the glory of the next. He looks forward to the future and revels in the hope of what is to come.

One of Christ's greatest gifts to us was to take away the "sting" of death, the worry that it is the end of everything. As the ugliness of the cross was turned into a symbol of victory, so is the fear of death turned into the promise of life for his followers.

There are things I want to accomplish in this world, time that I want to spend with my family, and hope that I might one day rise up to the challenges of the ministry that I've thus far failed to fully reach. Whether or not God gives me the time for this is up to Him, but I can rest assured that His timing of my death will be perfect and serve purpose, and that on that day, I will gain everything and lose nothing.

If I was the one to design the official Christian flag, I think I'd put that verse smack in the middle.