Not Home Yet: Seeing the Unseen

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

It’s how you get through the last two days of school for the year. Or the last ten minutes of the most boring lecture. Or the last 200 meters of a two-mile run. You focus all your attention on the finish line, the second hand of the clock, the final test.

nothome_350You don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt, that you’re not exhausted, that you’re not ready to be done. But you do focus on all the moments you can’t see, the moments of freedom you believe will come, the long season of rest that hasn’t happened yet. You focus your life on the invisible—but entirely real—end of this and beginning of that.

Paul decided his pile of pain was bearable because this life is already just about done when compared with all the blissful moments of eternity. Paul believed in the unseen heaven, and it gave him the hope and strength to keep going on Earth.

Think: How often do you think about the reality of heaven? Does it help you to deal with the temporary pain and trouble built into this life on Earth? Why or why not?

Pray: Ask God to help you to focus on the heaven you cannot see instead of the problems of this life that are so hard to look away from.

Do: Sometime this week, spend the last five minutes of your most boring stretch of time daydreaming about heaven.