Talking About Eternity
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” –Matt 24:14
When I was a child, this was the kind of verse that terrified me. If I am honest, it still unsettles me at times. It’s the second part of the verse “…and then the end will come.”
But I am a missionary! I have devoted my life to serving God. How come I sometimes feel like I don’t want Jesus to come back yet? Is it even OK to say that?
I don’t want to tell God what should be in the Bible but I do wonder why there is so little in there about eternity. And I wonder if we, as Christians, talk about it enough.
I feel like I can get my head around Heaven. I lost my mum when I was 18 and I can’t wait to see her and other loved ones again. I so look forward to seeing Jesus’s face, fully experiencing God’s glory and meeting great heroes of the faith—all that amazing stuff.
It’s the eternity part I have a problem with. Growing up in our little village church in the south of England, I knew what I needed to do. Be good, pray the prayer, have eternal life. I developed a solid faith in God. However, sometimes I would sit there and think “if eternity is like this, it must get boring day after day…forever.”
When I really encountered God in more of his goodness and glory for the first time in my early 20s, I got glimpses of heaven on earth. I experienced God in new ways and that solid faith that I had was fanned into flame. If those God encounters are what eternity is like, maybe it’s not so bad after all.
But I appreciate endings. For example, I love to run. When I race, I love the running but I also love finishing. I enjoy the satisfaction, the camaraderie, the free food, and, here in Spain, the best bit is you get a beer at the end! The end isn’t bad; in fact, it feels great.
I like endings. Eternity is hard; it has no end. Honestly, that is uncomfortable for me.
I love God and obviously believe that this good news is worth preaching to the whole world. On most days, I can trust him with eternity because I know it will be glorious, but sometimes there are nagging questions for me. What will eternity really be like? How will I cope with there being no ends? How do I prepare myself? I don’t know how often I have really taken these questions to God and I need to do that.
Maybe you are fine with eternity or maybe you’re like me (I hope I am not the only one out there!). Do you have nagging questions about eternity you haven’t brought to God?
I’d like to leave you with this song by MercyMe, I Can Only Imagine. Let it guide your processing and questioning about eternity today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Pickford is husband to Jess and dad to Mia, Rosie, and Oscar. They have been with Novo for six of the ten years they’ve lived in Spain. Andrew is an ex-tour leader in South America who became a language teacher and then a therapist. He enjoys using all those different life experiences in his work with SentWell.
