Rugged Treasure

Rereading this book has been so good for my heart. The way that the Eldredges bring up the necessity of the heart, and the interconnectedness as well as the importance of all of the various aspects of us as humans and children of God is beautiful and thought provoking. It has blessed me. It also has gotten me thinking long and hard about the role that hope and restoration have in our world and lives. Like someone said, what do we have if we don't have hope. I'm pretty sure we are left with not too much. :)
I just typed up a lengthily case for hope and restoration and it disappeared somewhere into cyberspace, so here it goes again.
An area of my life that has left me so discouraged is not knowing what God has for me in this life, what I am to do, where I am to go... but I have come to realize that he wants to use me as a beautiful vessel for his kingdom. He is in the business of restoration. What we need is a vision and hope. Let us never grow weary, but look with expectant eyes for his kingdom, while at the same time, watching for his work in the here and now. I think that if we are busy loving him, and loving other, we are where he wants us to be. We need not worry about the future when in the present we are serving and loving and growing the kingdom.
A silly and sappy example that jumps to mind is an old dilapidated building. Even though in the present there is technically nothing attractive about it, there is still something that draws me to it, there is something beautiful in it. I think it is because of the life I know it "lived", what it saw, what it was, and if it had a good, strong, solid foundation, it can be reworked to "see" life again, in a whole new way. What we need is to be humble, gentle, and moldable, while maintaining a solid foundation of truth. Though this is a poor and cheesy example, I am gonna stick with it. I think if we are rooted and grounded in Christ, looking ever expectantly to him, and loving him and others, He can do great things, and we are where we should be.



"....My restlessness grew. Standing on the edge of the cliff with the crashing of the waves below, and the shining of the stars above, I felt the restlessness swell into an ache. As Simone Weil said, there are only two things that pierce the human heart: beauty and affliction. I was run clean through by the beauty of it all, overcome by an ache for a home I have never seen.
I have had this experience many times, whether walking along the Napali Coast in Hawaii, flying over the glaciers of Alaska, or noticing the simple rays of sunshine falling on the kitchen table. Yet it always takes me by surprise. We grow so used to living in a world soiled by the Fall that our soul’s desire for beauty lies dormant deep within, waiting for something to awaken it. During a visit to Westminster Cathedral in England, a friend of mine got lost and by accident came into that glorious sanctuary by a rather commonplace side door. Stepping around the corner he was totally unprepared for the majesty he suddenly found himself engulfed by: sweeping architecture, the glory in stone and spire and glass. At that very moment a choir broke into song, their angelic harmonies filling the massive cathedral. 'I don’t know what happened,' he later told me, 'but I broke down and began to weep.'
'Each and every instance of beauty,' writes Mark Helprin, 'is a promise and example, in miniature, of life that can end in balance, with symmetry, purpose and hope.' We long for beauty and the promise that it speaks. Our revulsion to the ugly is the counterpart to our desire for beauty. I used to hate the part of my daily commute that took me through the worst sections of Washington, D.C.: abandon buildings, burned-out cars, desolate neighborhoods. It was a symbol of the triumph of evil, chaos, and death. My heart grieved to see such devastation and I breathed a sigh of relief as I passed through the wreckage and drove into the farmlands of Maryland. But we must be careful here; as Lewis said, one of the mistakes we so often make when captured by an object of beauty, whether it’s a place, a person, or a work of art, is to assume the longing in our heart is for the thing before us. The Ritz and Westminster and farm meadows – these are shadows of the realities to come. The beauty of the tabernacle carried by Israel through the desert was a type of the real item in heaven. So it goes with all things on hearth: The beauty that so captures our heart and is so fleeting draws us toward the eternal reality.
We long for beauty, and when the biblical writers speak of heaven, they use the most beautiful imagery they can. You can almost hear the agony of the writer trying to get it right while knowing that he falls short of what he sees. In the book of Revelation, St. John uses the word like again and again. 'And He we was sitting was like a jasper stone, and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance…. Before the throne there was… a sea of glass like crystal' (4:3,6 NASB). The beauty cannot be captured only alluded to by the most beautiful things on earth.
I believe the beauty of the heaven is why the Bible says we shall be 'feasted.' It’s not mearly that there will be no suffering, though that will be a tremendous joy in itself; to have every Arrow we’ve ever known pulled out and every wound dressed with the leaves from the tree of life (Rev. 22:2). But there is more. We will have glorified bodies with which to partake of all the beauty of heaven. As Edwards wrote, “Every faculty will be an inlet of delight.” We will eat freely the fruit of the tree of life and drink deeply from the river of life that flows through the city. And the food will satisfy not hyst our body but our soul. As Lewis said, “We do not merely want to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” (The Weight of Glory)
And so we shall."
(The Sacred Romance, Eldredge, 185-187)

Let me finish this post with this portion that kind of wraps it all together well.

" 'The whole life of the good Christian,' said Augustine, 'is a holy longing.' Sadly, many of us have been led to feel that we should atone for our longings, apologize that we feel such deep desire. Shouldn’t we be more content? Perhaps, but contentment is never wanting less; that is this easy way. Anybody can look holy of she’s killed her heart; the real test is to have your heart burning within you and have the patience to enjoy what there is now to enjoy, while waiting with eager anticipation for the feast to come. In Paul’s words, we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly” (Rom. 8:23). Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out toward its fulfillment," and carry is along with it."
(The Sacred Romance 199-200)