A desire for change

You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand (Psalm 16:11).

When summer began, the heat felt good.  It was a joy to finally go outside without having to bundle up against the cold and wind.  But by the time late summer rolled around, the heat and humidity had lost their appeal.  Cooler months without swarms of insects in the air are real appealing right now.  I’m enjoying nights when it’s pleasantly cool after the sun goes down. 

Of course, it was the same with winter.  The first snow is wonderful—barren fields and trees naked of leaves get coated in sparkling white.  Seasonal allergies disappear for a few months.  Road crews pack up for the season and let us drive without detours or construction delays.  But eventually winter loses its appeal too, and we start hungering for the return of warm weather.

Every situation has its good and its bad; with time, the good starts to lose its power to captivate us and we focus more and more on the bad, making us hungry for change.  We see this happen in marriages that end with divorce, in successful careers that suddenly change direction completely. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if something was so good that our enjoyment of it never wore out?  Wouldn’t it be nice to reach a point in your life where you were happy and content, and things would stay that way forever? There is such a thing. There is such a time.

Jesus is the Son of God.  He came down to earth from heaven to show us the way to a perfect life, a life so great that no change will ever be desired.  That life isn’t now, it’s coming in the future.  But the seeds of that life are planted now, and in due course they will mature into something utterly beautiful and completely satisfying.

Right now, life is spoiled by sin and corruption. Nothing is ever good enough—not good enough for God, not good enough for us.  So Jesus took the responsibility for all sin upon Himself and buried it in His grave when He died.  Then the Son of God rose from that grave alive, the first blossom of a new and different future.  When we die in Him, we are released from corruption. We will enter a timeless place where things are absolutely wonderful and our satisfaction will never wane.  There will only be an eternal now, and that point of absolute happiness will be the unending pinnacle of our lives.