Thinking well and often about eternity is not something that should scare or sadden us. When we deny the reality of eternity or live in ignorance of it, we are missing out on the joy of God.
I realize that all this talk about eternity might give you a feeling of urgency about how little time we have. To some extent, it is healthy for us to feel the gravitational pull of our finitude. Caring for children can cause us to simply focus on the minutes of the day (or night) passing by. We must pray like the psalmist: “Teach us to number our days well, that our hearts may gain wisdom” (Ps 90:12). We must ask the Lord to remind us that “what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2Co 4:18).
This is why we must be careful not to think that a mother's biggest problem is lack of time. How tempted I am to see a busy season as an obstacle to rejoicing in the Lord! The greatest impediment to rejoicing in God is not lack of time. When we lose sight of the eternal perspective in our daily lives, the atonement is no longer vital or precious to us. A gift greater than time is the gift of forgiveness for our sins through Christ Jesus, so we can contemplate our holy God.
Ultimately, living with eternity in mind is a work of God's redemptive love in our lives. I cannot present to you a creative and strategic plan to have a heart that holds on to God's purposes in eternity. None of us can muster enough willpower to love God and His glorious kingdom. Only the redeeming, almighty, transforming grace of God can raise our sinful hearts from the dead, give us eternal life, and fix our gaze on Jesus, our blessed hope. Every soul who has been resurrected by grace has experienced something that Jesus compared to the miracle of birth. He called it “being born again.” “Truly I say to you, no one who is not born again can see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
As descendants of our first parents, whose sin in the garden brought judgment on all humanity, we must marvel at God's common grace in allowing human life to continue in our fallen world. Both men and women can see God's common grace in giving us the gift of life. This is true even if a baby has never left your own body. This is true even if a child is taken to heaven before being born. When we consider the miracle of life, we can begin to understand what happened to us when we were born again and received eternal life. Where there was no life before, God gives life. What grace !
We are born dead in our crimes, enemies of God before we speak our first word or cling to our first proud thought. Being separated from life in God is a living death. Through faith, we see how God's gift was multiplied to a large number of people. Because Abraham believed God, we can trace our spiritual lineage back to Abraham himself. “So from this one man, already in decline, were born descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore” (Heb 11:12).
Abraham's faith was like Adam's. Although death reigned because of sin, both believed God's promise of life. We can marvel at God's grace along with the apostle Paul: “...all the more those who receive abundant grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through one man, Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:17). ). Our best response to this good news is to praise our merciful God. “Praise God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! “In His great mercy He has given us birth again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that we may have a living hope” (1P 1:3).
We live by faith. We can put our children to bed at night by faith, close our eyes to sleep (for a while) by faith, and wake up in the morning full of faith that Jesus is our hope, even when our children are growing too fast for our liking.
Excerpted from the book "Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full" by Gloria Furman
