When the Surreal is Real

I woke in the middle of the night Friday, thinking, “She’s in China.  This is the most bizarre thing.  She’s not just down the hall, like she’s always been.  She’s across the world right now.”  It was surreal.  I couldn’t even imagine it.  I tried to imagine what she was seeing, waiting in the Shanghai airport, attempting  to sleep through the layover.

It reminded me of how surreal seems our heavenly home.  My growing up years blur together now into a fairly meaningless small patch of history.  What will our time here on earth seem, when we are dazzled by His Home?  Our Home?  Do we get this?  “In my Father’s house are many mansions.  If it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you…”  We navigate so many joys and sorrows here, as if it were the time of importance.  And it is, insofar as we are sowing and harvesting according to our calling.  But it isn’t insofar as what we work toward is There, not here;  a place, a time, we cannot begin to fathom.

We also can note the context.  Jesus had been having a most disturbing conversation with His disciples.  RC Sproul points out, “The words fell like a thunderbolt on the ears of those assembled in the upper room.  In short order, they had been told that Judas was going to betray Jesus, that Jesus was about to leave them,  and that Peter was going to deny Him.  Can you imagine how these men felt upon hearing this series of dire announcements?  Their hearts were troubled beyond description, and it was in that context that Jesus said to them, “Let not your heart be troubled.” (Commentary on John 14)

Let not your heart be troubled...

And then He tells them to believe in Him.  Believe in His character, which does not change.  Believe in His promises, which are always what He says.  Believe in His love for His people, which we cannot begin to fully grasp.

And then, then…He tells them He has prepared mansion rooms for them… in a different world, a world beyond their imagination, but nonetheless exceptionally real.  Real for them.   And real for us.

Photos courtesy of Capturing Barefoot Photography

Taken in Cambodia, March, 2013