The Best is Yet to Come

A few Scripture passages come to mind for hope.

"You have saved the best wine until now."  John 2:10

"I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you." John 4:18

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." John 16:7

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It is ok if the good wine you were used to has run dry.  It is ok if the cosolations you were used to in life no longer satisfy.  It is ok if even the sense of Jesus' presence seems to fade  Because the best is yet to come.  That's how Jesus in fact works - He always has something better.  

In fact, I think Heaven will be an experience of continuous increases in joy; thinking it couldn't get any better than this we will, for all eternity, be surprise over and over and over.  

God is a God of surprises.  

And children love surprises.

God is our Father and we are His children.  He intends (if we trust Him and abandon ourselves to Him) to surprise us.  He intends to give us the deepest desires of our hearts.

However, this life is a continuous expansion of our hearts; a constant stretching and an ever deepening in our own self-realization about what our deepest desires actually are.  We know the answer of course.  Our deepest desire is total fulfillment in the eternal, unconditional love of God our Father.  

We reach points in our lives where we think, "This is it! This is happiness!"

God smiles...

"The best is yet to come."

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Our times of "desolation" and our experiences of emptiness allow our longing for God to increase.  He never abandons us of course.  Never.  It is just that our desire for Him needs to be purified.  He wants us to desire Him and not just the nice feelings we get when we sense His presence or the security we feel from His power.

Pure love is what we truly desire but we cannot attain it but througn pure faith and pure hope.  They need to be pure - unadulterated by selfish desires or self-seeking (for love is the exact opposite of selfishness.) There should, ultimately, be no other reason for us to pursue pure love (God) than pure love for God.  We should love Love because He is perfectly loveable and worthy of our love!  But in our lives, because we are imperfect, we know that "Love is not loved."  Love is not loved as He ought to be; as He deserves to be. The human heart just won't be satisfied until we love with absolute purity and by ourselves we can't do it.  Often, though, we don't even realize how impure (read "mixed") our love is.  It is God's mercy that allows us to be dissatisfied with where we're at because at the end of the day...

The best is yet to come

And we need to suffer His coming (and it is a real suffering!)

"For our God is a consuming fire... (Hebrews 12:29) "...a jealous God." (Deuteronomy 4:24)

(Jesus, Incarnate God, is called the "Lion of the Tribe of Judah" in Revelation 5:5)

And as long as we allow Him to keep coming in the ways that He wants to He will not stop His offensive until He has exactly what He wants:

Your heart.

All of it.

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"The LORD is a warrior; LORD is His Name."  (Exodus 15:3)

"The Lord Himself will fight for you; you have only to be still." (Exodus 14:14)

"...Let it be done to me according to Your Word." (Luke 1:38)

Let Him come.  Receive Him. He is exactly what your heart craves even if His firey love burns painfully and purifies away all the dross.  Just remember:

The best is yet to come.

-MM