The End of the Story

In thinking about difficult relationships with other believers, one of the truths that has been most comforting to me is the glory of Heaven. Not streets of gold, or mansions, or crowns, or harps, but, as Jonathan Edwards liked to say, that “heaven is a world of love!” What has been of immense comfort to me is to think of the certainty of the happy ending. The promise of happiness together in the end is as rock-solid as the truthfulness and power of God. No matter how difficult some relationships may be with other believers in this age, no matter how strained or broken the relational bonds may be in this world, no matter how much we may fail to fully reconcile in this life through pride, foolishness, or misunderstanding, there stands God’s unbreakable promise that the story has a happy ending for his people. Someday, when God completes his work of redemption and brings us all into his presence, we will stand before him, full of love for him and for each other, with no trace of resentment, bitterness, anger, or misunderstanding. It won’t be so important then who was right and who was wrong. Everything will be swallowed up in God’s divine love. Our faces will shine like the stars of heaven, full of unveiled goodness and love. No walls of self-protection. No hidden shame. No bitter regrets. God will be all in all, which is precisely why there will be such unity among us in heaven. Have you noticed how all the saints in heaven portrayed in Revelation are united in their enraptured focus on God? There is no self-promotion in heaven. Probably all relational conflict among believers is attributable in some degree to a self-focus instead of an absolute God-focus. Our dreams, our ideas, our desires, our expectations, or our fears have somehow contaminated the unity we ought to have. I don’t think we can expect perfection in this area this side of heaven. As long as we live in this evil age with remaining sin within us, we will always have some vestige of sinful self-interest. Part of our goal should be to become more and more God-centered in our desires, dreams, and expectations. To do the hard, long work of giving up our cravings for self-glory, self-justification, and self-protection and focus instead on God’s glory, God’s will, God’s power, and God’s love. A chorus I learned as a child says, “Let’s forget about ourselves, and magnify the Lord, and worship him.” Maybe it should say, “Let’s forget about ourselves by magnifying the Lord and worshiping him.” For the sake of maintaining “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), let’s increasingly forsake self-interest and instead focus humbly on God. That’s a noble goal, but, as I said, I don’t think we’ll ever reach perfection in this area this side of heaven. Which brings me back to my main point. Even though we will never reach relational perfection in this life, we have God’s sure promise that in the end, we will be standing side by side, full of love and pure affection for each other, all hurts healed and relationships restored, enjoying the glory of God’s presence together. This thought gives me great comfort, joy, and hope, and helps me to be patient and persevering in the midst of strained or broken relationships, knowing with certainty that we will love each other in the end, by the grace and power of God.

Shared & Unrequited Joy

I was talking to someone recently who lost their son when he was 19 years old. They commented that they could talk about him for hours on end. Everything about their life with him. “We don’t want to forget him,” he said.

I think he also loves talking about his son because of all the joy it brings to remember him as a living person. We always like to talk about whatever brings us joy. Whatever is really important to us, we like to tell about. I think it was C. S. Lewis who pointed out that joy is not complete until it is shared with someone else. If I really enjoyed a movie, I naturally want to tell someone about it. But more than just telling, I want someone to share in my experience of joy. So even though I’ve already seen the movie, I’ll watch it again with someone else, the whole time glancing over to see if they are sharing my delight or not. If they are, my joy is complete.

But what if they’re not? What if they watch the movie and say, “Eeh, that was alright, I suppose.” I like a movie called “Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald” (in Japanese, with subtitles). I think it’s one of the funniest movies ever, but my wife doesn’t care for it. There’s also a book I love called Such is Life, written in the late 1800’s by an Australian author. I think it is one of the most brilliant works of literature in the world. I could go on for some time talking about the brilliance of the dialogue, how funny it is, how unbelievably ingenious the hidden plots are. But I can’t find anyone else who likes the book or has ever heard of it. I have unrequited joy.

Unrequited joy is discouraging. It’s like a wet blanket on a campfire, or a computer virus that strikes just as you get to the last level of an awesome computer game, or a thunderstorm on an outdoor wedding, or a slap in the face. It stings, and it’s hard not to take it personally. It’s not nice if someone hates what I love, but what really hurts is if someone is completely disinterested in something I love, something that gives me great joy.

Three points: 1) The force of my natural, inner compulsion to talk about God or Jesus Christ is an indication of how much joy I really feel in him, how much love and delight I find in him. Ouch! I don’t need anyone to push me or command me to talk about what I love or what gives me great joy. Why do I need someone to push me or command me to talk about Jesus? The more joy I find in him, the more natural it will be for me to talk about him. Finding joy in Christ must therefore be a conscious goal of my life. 2) Evangelism can legitimately be viewed simply as my attempt to share my joy with another to see if they will find joy in the same person. That doesn’t seem so daunting. I’m not trying to manipulate or argue someone into believing a set of doctrines, I am sharing my joy in the person of Jesus with someone else. Whether or not they come to share my joy in Jesus is up to God. He is one who shines “in our hearts to give the light of the [experiential] knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). 3) One of the glories of heaven is that there will be no unrequited joy. Every person in heaven will have full, eternal joy in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in each other. There will be no joy that is not fully shared and appreciated by everyone else. We will all praise together. There will be no “Eeh, I suppose God is alright,” or “I don’t know . . . Jesus just doesn’t do much for me. I’m glad you like him, though.” Our joy will be full because it will be fully shared and experienced by everyone else.