Relativity and Suffering

It is hard to think about spending eternity with God and how this should put perspective on our present woes. Perhaps thinking on a smaller scale will help. Imagine you woke up one morning got out of bed and stubbed your toe. You go to the kitchen to find the fridge stopped working yesterday and the milk is off and all the frozen food has thawed. You go up stairs without having had coffee or breakfast to shower. You weigh yourself and find the scale has been badly set for weeks and you have actually gained a few pounds. You get into the shower and find the heating thermostat is faulty and the water goes from volcano heat to arctic cold and back again continuously. You get soap in your eyes. You forgot to bring a towel. All the socks in your sock drawer are mismatched. You find a text on your phone from your boss with nothing but the ominous words: “we need to talk”. It has been a pretty grim first hour of the day.

But …

Then it turns out you are getting a promotion and from the time you arrive at work that day for the next ten years you have nothing but good fortune. Never sick, never lonely, never tired or uninspired. You meet your spouse and are always happily married. You have great children who continually bless and honour you. Life is fulfilling and dreamlike. Your hobby becomes your career and you are recognized as one of the best at it. And so on … imagine such a scenario and ask yourself ten years on from that horrible morning will you even remember it? Perhaps you will recall it only because it contrasted so sharply with what then followed.

I believe our future as beloved of God will be something like this but on a vastly different scale. After a thousand years of being directly and palpably blessed by the Father, worshipping and enjoying God with perfect bodies in a perfect place – will this tiny slice of eternity which we call our lifespan – this 80 or so years in the flesh, in the world under the torment of the devil – will it even register in our memories other than that it was so different from what we will have gained? Will the loved ones we have lost forever be so sorely felt when we have gained millions of brothers and sisters in the heavenly family and are conversing with angels? Will we miss a single thing or regret a single moment of heaven once we are there. I think not.

For it is written:

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"  (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Also:

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

And best of all – worthy of much meditation:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 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 4:16-18)