July 3rd Reflection by Bill Lynch

My Granddaughter spent the evening with her Aunt Sarah, known to Kaiya as Aunt Horsey. Horsey's love demonstrated through the childhood joy of a horsey ride on the back of an adult. Kaiya is here shown in her joy and love of the presence of Horsey and the play they enjoyed that evening. In some way Kaiya in heaven with Horsey.

Read 2 Corinthians 12:2-10

The man was snatched away, kind of like the rapture. The man was taken to the presence of God. The man was blessed by God and was with God. What a wonderful thought and an awesome act of God this must have been for this person. Exciting yet fearful in the presence of God. Fearful in the sense that to be in God's presence is at the same time humbling yet exciting and wonderful that God would care that much for one person.

And then the thought of Paradise. Paradise in the sense of a park. A wonderful park like the Garden of Eden. A place of glory and mysterious. It seems that heaven is left this way for us as we read the Word in the Bible. Heaven is mysterious but the image that we paint in our minds is one of hope. Heaven it seems is deliberately blurry but the Word is detailed in our need for salvation to come into the presence of God in Heaven.

Contrast this thought with Paul's situation. We have heaven on one hand and the reality of this present world and the sins, and disease that are present with us now. The flesh brings pain and suffering. We become ill, we decay and we die. We all suffer from the thorn of depression or some illness or just the pain of aging. We desire to be released from our pain and suffering, yet must learn to live with the pain for most of our life. A pain that humbles each one of us in the presence of God.

A contrast of earthly life in the here and now and the heavenly life in the here and now and the yet to come. But we find that God has richly blessed us now in the hope of heaven. God is with us and we are in the presence of God now in our sorrow and pain and we will be in the presence of God in the glorious victory of Jesus Christ defeat of sin and death on our behalf.

God has called us to run the race as we live life on this earth. God has called us to stand tall in the presence of pain and witness God's love to all people that God gives to us each day. There is a salvation to be proclaimed through Jesus Christ that all need to hear and witness to. A salvation made plain and clear in the Word made flesh. A salvation that leads us through this life to a heavenly reward we did not attain through our own, but through the love of God in Christ Jesus.