The Hardest Lesson to Learn.

Christian author John Eldredge writes in his immensely beautiful book Desire, that “It can’t be done. No matter how hard we try, no matter how clever our plan, we cannot arrange for the life we desire. ...This is the... lesson we must learn, and in many ways the hardest to accept. We must have life; we cannot arrange for it. People will avoid this lesson all their days, changing their plans, their jobs, even their mates, rather than facing the truth.

...‘In this world you will have trouble.’ No kidding. Jesus, the master of understatement, captures in one sentence the story of our lives. He adds, ‘But take heart! I have overcome the world’ {Jn. 16:33}. Why aren’t we more encouraged? (Sometimes we’ll try to feel encouraged when we hear a ‘religious‘ passage like this, but it never really lasts.) The reason is that we are still committed to arranging for life now. Be honest. Isn’t there a disappointment when you realized that I’m not going to offer you the seven secrets of a really great life today? If I wanted to make millions, that’s the book I would write. The only thing is, I would have to lie. It can’t be done. Not yet. And that yet makes all the difference in the world because desire cannot live without hope. But hope in what? For what?

‘Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed’ {1 Pet. 1:13}. I read a passage like this, and I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Fully? We don’t even set our hope partially on the Life to come. Not really, not in the desires of our hearts. Heaven may be coming. Great. But it’s a long way off and who really knows, so I’m getting what I can now. ...For most Christians, Heaven is a backup plan. Our primary work is finding a life we can at least get a little pleasure from here. Heaven is an investment we’ve made, like Treasury bonds or a retirement account, which we’re hoping will take care of us in the future sometime, but which we do not give much thought to at present. It’s tucked away in a drawer at the back of our minds, while we throw our immediate energies into playing the stock market. God comes in like a corporate raider, ruining our plans as we watch our ‘stocks’ go into a tailspin.

‘Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart....’ {Deut. 8:2-3}. When the Israelites left Egypt, they headed across the Red Sea to Mt. Sinai. From there it was only about a two week journey into the Promised Land. Fourteen days turned into forty years. A blind camel would have found its way sooner than that. God designed a supernaturally long trail in order to deal with what was in their hearts.

...God must take away the heaven we create, or it will become our hell. You may not think your efforts to arrange for a little of what you desire are anything like heaven on Earth. I certainly didn’t; not, at least, in the more conscious regions of my heart. But some deep and tender part of us gets trapped there in those times and places where we have had a taste of the life we long for. ...I realized that the real issue is this: I haven’t wanted to be an eternal person. I’ve wanted to find life here somehow. I think at any time during those years of thwarting, had you asked me if I truly longed for Eternity, I would have said yes. My answer would not have been dishonest, but it would not have been entirely true, either. George MacDonald explained the thwarting,

"Thy hand unloved its pleasure must restrain,
Nor spoil both gift and child by lavishing too soon.”

{Italics and Emboldens Mine}

Ric Webb, Shepherd
Heart's Journey Community
hjcommunity.org