Something to Look Forward to

What keeps you going?

I have found that if I have something in the future to anticipate, the daily grind isn't so bad. All I need is a countdown of days, and I can make it. Whether it's a concert, road trip, day off of work, or just a coffee date with my husband, I'm almost always looking ahead to something. Even if the day is months away, the prospect of something fun or meaningful to look forward to helps me stay focused on the moments at hand. Which, actually sounds weird because one would think the anticipation of something would lead to distraction. Yet, that is how it is for me.

However, as much as I would not like to admit it, it seems it is the anticipation, more than the occasion or event itself, which brings the most joy. I have always wished it were the other way around, that the actual event or occasion anticipated would surpass the anticipation, but that seems to rarely happen. I have come to wonder if maybe that is because the anticipation is meant as an analogy of something spiritual. Our longing for heaven, perhaps?

Maybe God does not want us to find our satisfaction here, for these short 80 years. Maybe we try to. Our finite minds cannot fathom the joy of Eternity. As our hearts remain always waiting and hoping for something better, always something more spectacular around the next corner (and mine always does), we find only continued anticipation, conscious or not, for the ultimate culmination of joy found only in and with God Himself. And that continued anticipation can be easily mistaken for disappointment when, really, it ought to urge us to praise God for not allowing things of this world to satiate us like only God can.

Maybe that's why the days leading up to December 25th are always brimming with excitement as we think about how perfect everything is going to be, but then when Christmas Day rolls around we usually experience little more than wrapping paper messes; stomachaches; possible extended family quarrels; and, despite myriads of gifts received, emptiness in our hearts. 'Did we miss the point?' we ask ourselves. 'Did we forget about some meaningful tradition? Did we forget to light the candles? What happened?' Yes, culture and the world can steal our hearts away from the humble approach Mary and Joseph took to celebrate the birth of the Messiah so that we do miss the point. (Although, I don’t recommend sitting down to Christmas dinner in a barn!) Amidst all our planning for perfection, we sometimes forget that we live in a very imperfect world, and our minds often paint unrealistic pictures of life.

Yet at the same time, there is something to be said about the joy of anticipation, even on occasions when our hearts are indeed right (and, in the event of Christmas, commercialism doesn’t get the best of us). The fact is, this is not home. We really are pilgrims. No holiday, birthday bash, or ski trip could ever top what is in store for the believer! There will come a time when we will experience perfection, but that will never be here!

Knowing we are made for a far better place and a heart that is fully healed, does this then mean we should cease to enjoy life as we know it? Should we just lie down and silently wait with inactivity for our redemption? Well, is that what we do between Thanksgiving and Christmas? No, preparations are made to build the excitement! The tree gets trimmed, the presents wrapped, and the cards sent. Why should we act any differently during this time of eternal expectation? This journey is part of the joy we await!

For that matter, what does an engaged couple spend time doing before their union? Take my wedding as an example. One of my favorite seasons of expectancy took place the first weeks following our engagement. How much fun it was to check out a dozen wedding books and magazines from the library, and to sit for hours in a Barnes & Noble, snapping countless pictures of cute flower and table arrangements from decorating books with my camera phone. How exciting it was to choose colors, scribble up guest lists, and wade through beautiful music arrangements! It starts once the ring is on her finger, or at least that moment in the dressing room at the bridal shop when she tries on that first dress. The possibilities are endless, and immediately she begins to imagine walking down the isle. Time and time again she pictures the face of her groom grinning broadly from the front of the church. A bride-to be’s mind is constantly preoccupied with visions of the actual wedding day, when all the preparations, plans, and dreams finally come together.

The day finally comes and it is exquisitely wonderful and breathtaking, just like she imagined….almost. And yet that “almost” takes absolutely nothing away from the beauty and perfection of the day, however it happens to go down. The sweet anticipation was actually part of the wedding day. For that matter, the entire package: meeting, first date, first kiss, every subsequent date, engagement, wedding planning (although most of it, tedious and stressful!); and the dreaming, hoping, wishing, thinking, pursuing, creating, loving – all of it – as well as the dress, pictures, processional, vows, pronouncement, and honeymoon. Nothing is exclusive and all of it contains the joy of anticipation.

It has been more than a year after my own wedding, and the anticipation still remains. Every day is new and full of expectation. Life keeps going, we keep growing and moving on to our destination: Eternity. It only makes sense that we keep waiting for something greater to come along because there is something greater. It hasn’t come yet because we are still wearing this flesh and walking this dirt. The anticipation we experience in this life provides us with glimpses of that day when we finally get to see the entire picture, see all of it come together and know that there was no flaw in the design.

I can’t wait to see through God’s lens and finally learn the answers to all of my questions. But I don’t want those questions to keep me from exercising faith in what He has already said. Thankfully, God is with us now and has given us the lens of Scripture by which to view this world. And yet gaining (and keeping) the confidence that God is working things out, and that His justice and compassion somehow mesh, plainly takes some hard faith. It can be difficult to accept that God actually receives glory for what happens on this Earth. We hear more bad news than good. But there would be no need for redemption if this world were ideal and whole. I think the times we see God’s glory the most is when He applies healing to something that is broken. And boy, are we broken! Sin has made a mess, and God wants us to witness and enjoy His glory as he redeems his people back to Himself! All the hopelessness, fear, catastrophe, and bitterness remains because there is still more to the story! But we aren’t writing it! For now our “God-vision” is limited. That, however, should leave us clawing for something more. More of Him. One day all anticipation will finally cease, and we will not be disappointed nor left to crave anything else.

I don’t know what that will be like, because I am constantly empty, I am daily searching for something to fill me. Some moments are better than others, moments in which I choose to live in the hope of eternally basking in the glory of God. On those days I am not as easily frustrated and set-off. And even when life doesn’t slow down, I allow my heart to still long enough to see God at work around me. I begin to discover reasons for which to be grateful.

Other days, I would rather settle for basking in the earthly, the temporary. I allow people to name me. My schedule overtakes and consumes me. I grasp at books, projects, food, music, sleep, working out, to find happiness and purpose. To try to gain some sort of control. And I express a skewed understanding of God, which, in reality, fosters these results.

The anticipation is good. Very good. The object of the anticipation, though, is what is important. In His wisdom, God intended us to receive more joy when we honor the Giver over the gift because there is no glory in the gift all by itself. I know I am more grateful for the time, expense, and energy it takes a special person to make me a cake than I am for the actual cake, tasty as it may be. My guess is that anticipation on this earth is meant to leave us empty but also to bring a spark of hope so that our ultimate longing and satisfaction would rest in the glory of God alone.

The Giver is the gift; the gift is the Giver! What can top that!