"Now Boarding"

The human life is often referred to as a journey.  I love that metaphor.  My first blog was called "Somewhere Along the Road" and I named the first dog I had sole naming rights for Journey.  It's such a pleasant thought to think I am ambling down the wooded path of life, never knowing what delightful thing might be just around the bend.  But when people use this metaphor, it is usually assumed that the journey ends when our lives on earth end.

Since I am a Christian, I believe that I have eternal life, but it's only been in the last few years that I've really started to think about the fact that I am going to live forever.  My so-called "death" on earth is just the beginning of my life in heaven.  Over the past few years, as this idea of living forever became more real to me, it began to influence the context in which I thought about the life/journey metaphor.  I started to think of life as a journey to a specific destination.  I know heaven is going to be, well, heaven, and so in my metaphor the destination became someplace tropical, say "the Bahamas."  The means of transportation became an airplane ride.

I really don't like to fly.  Every second I'm in a plane I'm imagining that we are about to plunge to our deaths at any moment.  I clutch the arm rests with white knuckles and pray continually.  But by the time I've picked up my luggage and arrived at my hotel, I've usually forgotten the trauma of the flight.  I even turn right around and get on a return flight as soon as my stay is over.

And why is this?  Because my destination was so lovely and my time so relaxing that the fact that I had a turbulent flight there becomes a distant memory.  I've never arrived at my final destination, compared notes with a traveler on another flight, and then complained because they had a smoother flight there.  No, I'm too busy unpacking and heading out to explore!

I've come to realize that this is exactly what life on earth is - a plane ride to paradise.  No matter how bumpy the flight, how cramped the seats, or how pitiful the snacks, what matters in the end is that you made it.  Once we arrive in heaven, that little "plane ride" there will seem so inconsequential; we won't even give it a second thought.

The Bible talks about this idea, although it never crystallized in my mind until I applied the journey metaphor to it.  2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says, "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (ESV).  I love the song, Before the Morning, by Josh Wilson.  This particular part has been running through my head lately: "Once you feel the weight of glory, all the pain will fade to memory...'Cause all the pain that you've been feeling can't compare to the joy that's coming."

This life is just a journey.  If my journey is bumpier than others', that's okay.  I'm still going to make it to "the Bahamas."  And once I feel that "weight of glory," I will see that my trials were really "light momentary affliction" in comparison.