The little years of parenting are a wonderful and sometimes unbearable wilderness.

Nighttime can be a series of uncivil wars — getting children fed and bathed (and sometimes re-bathed), then getting them into the right bed, at the right time, with the right bedtime story or song (only after finding that beloved stuffie), then keeping them in that bed until they fall asleep (and repeating all of the above when one wakes up at 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00), and then frantically getting as much sleep as you can before the artillery and bloodshed begin again. What’s one of the first questions any of us thinks to ask a parent of babies or toddlers? How are you sleeping? Answers range from “Pretty well” to “What is sleep again?” The nights can be the hardest.

“Jesus can fully sympathize with weakness, with exhaustion, with spiritual warfare.”

And once they’re awake, a new series of predictable but unstoppable ambushes begins. While you’re feeding the baby his breakfast, the two-year-old decides to moisturize her face and arms and clothes with yogurt. While you’re still removing dairy from her hair, your four-year-old loudly announces he’s finished going potty and needs help. While you’re wiping another behind, your two-year-old now decides to remove all the clothes from her dresser. And while you’re refolding a dozen 2Ts, the baby starts screaming because he’s hungry. The days can be the hardest.

The wilderness — primitive, untamed, filled with life, fiercely beautiful — is a fitting picture for these little years with children.

Jesus Braved the Wilderness

As my wife and I wander through these years, I have taken some serious comfort from knowing that Jesus is acquainted with desolate places. “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). Our Savior didn’t save us from a safe and heavenly distance, but stepped into the darkest, scariest corners of our fallen world and faced temptation head-on. He fully sympathizes with weakness, with exhaustion, with spiritual warfare.

While he was in the wilderness, he was tempted by Satan. Unlike Adam and Moses and David and me, Jesus never bit. You can imagine the devil growing increasingly disturbed, desperate, enraged. All the lies that had so easily felled millions before — giants and kings, mothers and soldiers, rich and poor, young and old, prostitutes and Pharisees — now fell flat and soft, like blazing arrows in an ocean.

By the time we’re brought into the skirmish, the forty days have ended, and the devil reaches back for three last frantic shots. He held these three for just this moment, when Jesus was his weakest. And while Jesus was not a father or mother, tired and stressed parents will recognize these lies all too well.

Lie 1: ‘You don’t have what you need.’

When Satan feels his forty-day war with Jesus coming to an end and his feeble chances of victory slipping away, where does he strike? Where do his malicious eyes see vulnerability?

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (Matthew 4:2–3)

Where does the devil take aim first? At the stomach. And why wouldn’t he, since it’s worked from the beginning? “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). You don’t have to be hungry anymore, he whispers. I can give you what you really need. I will give you more than God will. You trusted him, and look where that’s gotten you.

Don’t parents hear the same whispers? We may not face physical hunger (although moms are known to go without meals). But parenting young children will consistently demand more than you think you have to give — physically, yes, but also emotionally and spiritually. You will sometimes lie down at night sincerely convinced you won’t have enough for another day. Parenting can make tomorrow feel like both an inevitability and an impossibility. You might begin to wish you could turn some stones into bread (or at least some dirty clothes into clean laundry).

We know Adam and Eve caved and took the bite, but how did Jesus respond? What did his moments of intense hunger sound like? He answered Satan, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). Notice, he doesn’t say, “I don’t need bread.” He was every bit as human as any stay-at-home mom. But he knew he needed something more than he needed the next meal. He knew his physical and emotional needs were mere shadows of what he needed and had in God.

So, let your needs in the wilderness of parenting — for food, for sleep, for adult conversation, for getting other things done around the house — remind you that you need one thing more than you need anything else. And if you have that — fellowship with an almighty, all-satisfying God in his word — he can sustain you for another long day with kids.

Lie 2: ‘God won’t come through for you.’

When he couldn’t get him to reach for the cupboard, the devil applied vicious pressure to the promises holding Jesus up in the wilderness.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:5–6)

What’s the sinister whisper beneath this temptation? Sure, God got you through this, but you haven’t been in any real danger. Think about tomorrow. Deep down, you know he won’t come through for you then. It’s wickedly cunning, and on two levels. First, he belittles what God has done thus far (he just sustained Jesus alone in the wilderness for forty days without food). Second, he concocts imaginary circumstances to arouse unwarranted suspicion (“But what if you threw yourself off of the temple?”).

“Parenting can make tomorrow feel like both an inevitability and an impossibility.”

Even though it failed on Jesus, the devil fabricates the same illusions in our wilderness. He throws shadows over the stunning examples of God’s mercy and care for us, and then turns spotlights onto every conceivable fear about the future. He knows how to make the next 24 hours feel larger and heavier than years, or even decades, of God’s persistent faithfulness. And he knows parents of young children are more vulnerable than most, because the days are so long and unyielding.

As he stands on the temple and looks down, what makes Jesus feel as secure as ever? How does he beat back the siren songs of doubt? He says to Satan, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Matthew 4:7). Notice, Jesus doesn’t reach for a promise this time, but for a command. Promises aren’t our only weapons against temptation. Because he loves us and because he knows how Satan attacks, our heavenly Father also gives us warnings to heed and rules to follow. Jesus knew how Israel had tested God in their wilderness, with grumbling and disobedience (Exodus 17:7), and he knew how that test ended. He wasn’t going to befriend doubt. Even under intense pressure and pain, he trusted God’s good laws.

What commands might help keep you through the wilderness of parenting? “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). Can you, like Jesus, recite them when you need them?

Lie 3: ‘All of this can be yours.’

When Jesus wouldn’t bite on the first two lies, Satan tried to prey on a different kind of hunger.

The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8–9)

If he couldn’t lure Jesus away through the pain of need, then he would bait his hook with worldly pleasure. He would hold out what so many fallen people crave: power, authority, glory. He appeals to a pervasive human longing to be seen, admired, and followed. Hearing him talk, it’s hard not to think of social media as a massive, global version of this insidious temptation. They will all look to you. All the eyes will be yours.

He whispers something similar to parents (and perhaps especially to mothers in our day). Look how much you’re giving up. Think about the opportunities waiting out there. No one even notices all you do. All good parents forfeit something of what Satan was offering that day. We invest an extraordinary amount of time, attention, and money, during our strongest and most energetic years, to change diapers and make snacks, to practice letters and reread simple books, to play catch and wipe tears. And Satan knows how to make all of that seem so, so, so small (and just about anything else seem so, so, so great).

So, how does Jesus see through the deception? He responds, “Be gone, Satan!” — we need that kind of aggression for the everyday spiritual battles of parenting — “For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Matthew 4:10). He reaches for another command, and (as with all of God’s commands) there’s a compelling reality wrapped inside. Jesus (even Jesus!) refused to seize glory, not only because the law said not to, but because he knew that the law was a script for his greatest possible joy.

God’s commands aren’t arbitrary or irrelevant to our hungers. One by one, they pave a pathway to the feast. The most satisfying lives are firmly anchored in and pointed at the glory of God. To focus on self, as a Savior or a parent, would be to forfeit everything. Jesus warns us later, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:25–26). Whoever loses his life for my sake — Christian parenting often feels like that kind of sacrifice, and it should. That is, if we want to find and experience life.

Whether you’re in a wilderness now or see one coming in the distance, arm yourself against temptation. Commit the words you need to memory, so that you can hear them even when you don’t have the strength or quiet to read them. Get as close as you can to the Son who has gone before you, and prevailed for you, and now walks with you. And then trust him for what you and your kids need tomorrow.

When did you first become acquainted with your finitude?

To some, that may seem like a funny question. When was I not acquainted with finitude? For as long as you remember, you’ve been confronted with the limits you face in the mirror. Sometimes, it may even feel like the mirror has come to life and follows you, carrying your flaws and failures wherever you go. There’s a friend who sticks closer than a brother, and finitude draws closer still.

Where shall I go from my limits?     Or where shall I flee from my weakness?If I work diligently into the night, you are there!     If I wake early before the others, you are there!If I give all I have, and do all I can, and make every possible effort,     even there you find me.

Finitude, of course, touches a dozen different nerves. You may get tired more quickly than others, and end most days worrying about what didn’t get done. You may have a hard time falling asleep, or staying asleep. Or if there’s an opportunity to get sick, your body seems to seize it. Maybe you’ve battled chronic illness or persistent pain over years or decades. Or you’re called to some difficult relationship that always seems to demand more than you can give. It’s part of the mystery and brilliance of humanity — these creatures that can harness electricity, transplant a heart, and visit the moon, and yet still need naps and sick days.

Whatever limits you, you can probably walk outside and see something of yourself in those tiny green blades beneath your feet:

As for man, his days are like grass;     he flourishes like a flower of the field;for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,     and its place knows it no more. (Psalm 103:15–16)

If you follow this grassy trail through Scripture, you realize that our finitude isn’t the accident it often seems to be (or at least feels like in the moment). If you can believe it, it’s actually a feature.

“Humans are finite to maximize, not minimize, what humans are made to be and do.”

Notice, even before the fall (before our need for redemption), God made us unavoidably limited. And now after the fall, he uses our finitude to draw us back to him. From the beginning, humans are finite to maximize, not minimize, what humans are made to be and do. To be fully human requires feeling and embracing the limits of being human. Even glorified humans living with God in the new heavens and new earth will still be finite — free from sin and pain and sorrow, but not without the limits of a body.

We know our finiteness is intentional and purposeful, because God brings it up again and again in the Bible. As he does, he often reaches for grass (which, remember, he himself sovereignly sketched and planted).

All flesh is grass,     and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.The grass withers, the flower fades     when the breath of the Lord blows on it;     surely the people are grass. (Isaiah 40:6–7)

As I write, our yard’s been without rain for several weeks. Despite some real (modest) effort, I’m watching the withering in real time the brief and fragile life of my poor lawn. And I’m learning about myself. All flesh is grass, even mine, and my short spring and summer will soon fall into winter.

But grass isn’t the only window we have into finitude. Even in Psalm 103, God gives us another metaphor for our limitations: “He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). Man was formed from dust, and we must all return to dust, and in between, we are small, brief, and brittle, like dust. Dust from dust to dust.

By the sweat of your face     you shall eat bread,till you return to the ground,     for out of it you were taken;for you are dust,     and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19; see Ecclesiastes 3:20)

Like grass, like dust, like a single drip of water: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales” (Isaiah 40:15). We were meant to feel this way, like a 5-foot 9-inch blade of grass, like a 195-pound shadow. If you feel the discomfort of finitude, you’re not alone and you’re not crazy. You’re human.

Prayers of Finitude

The more I walk through the field of Psalm 103 in particular — “As for man, his days are like grass” — the more I realize that finitude weaves its way through the whole psalm. These have been some of my favorite verses to pray in all the Bible:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,     and all that is within me,     bless his holy name!Bless the Lord, O my soul,     and forget not all his benefits,who forgives all your iniquity,     who heals all your diseases,who redeems your life from the pit,     who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,who satisfies you with good     so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1–5)

I’ve long loved these verses for rehearsing the height and width and depth of God’s power and love, but I’ve recently learned to appreciate them even more for being prayers of vulnerability and finitude. These are the prayers of people acquainted with sickness (“who heals all your diseases”), of people in desperate situations (“who redeems your life from the pit”), of people wrestling with weakness (who renews your youth), of people weighed down by sin (“who forgives all your iniquity”), and in the next verse, of people who’ve been wronged and wounded (who “works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed”).

“Finitude exists to lead us to Infinitude.”

In just a handful of lines, we can each find someone who relates to our finitude. We can find a cry for whatever fragile moments we experience. We also find a God ready to meet and bless us in our particular limits and weaknesses.

Where Finitude Takes Us

If we let it, finitude really will help us live happier, more fully human lives, but only if we see through the grass, the dust, the shadow, the drip. Follow Psalm 103 through the field: “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But . . .” Now we’ll learn where the good path of finitude finally leads. All of our weakness, sickness, frustration, disappointment has been leading us to and through this sentence:

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,     and his righteousness to children’s children,to those who keep his covenant     and remember to do his commandments.The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,     and his kingdom rules over all. (Psalm 103:17–19)

Finitude exists to lead us to Infinitude. God never grows weak or tired. He never needs help. He never sins. He never feels stuck or desperate. He never needs to sleep in or take a nap. Unlike us, he’s not like grass. If all the nations are a drop in the bucket, his kingdom is an ocean.

So, as we come up against our limits again and again, when we feel our dust-ness more acutely again today, or tomorrow, or sometime next year, we’re meant to see and feel his limitlessness. There’s no ceiling to his ability, no reins on his power, no vulnerability in his plan, no exhausting his mercy. The grassiness of our short, complicated, confusing, often discouraging lives should lead us to his iron throne of love. Every limit and weakness that sets us apart from God can help us savor more of him.

He Knows Our Frame

Being himself infinite, you might think God would have a hard time relating to finite creatures like us, but he doesn’t. In his infinitude, he finds the heart to father the weak and flawed, to love us as if we were his own children. He loves us more than an earthly father could (Luke 11:13).

As a father shows compassion to his children,     so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.For he knows our frame;     he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:13–14)

We know our frame, and we grumble and despair. God knows our frame (even more than we know ourselves), and yet instead of complaining about us or rejecting us, he draws close to strengthen and help us. In Christ, his power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). He approaches our frailty with the heart of a devoted father, not of a ruthless manager. If we fear and follow him, the limits we’re tempted to despise about ourselves stir and inflame the coals of his compassion.

And he not only knows our frame, but sent his Son to bear our frame. Our God is the only God ever conceived who can sympathize with finitude. Jesus lived a short, physically demanding, relationally trying, temptation-battling life. He slept and got sick. He even died. And then he rose to give your grass-like life a throne-like weight and glory.

So, if you feel a little like grass, let those sharp green blades point you up and away from your frustrations and insecurities to the God who knows your finitude, planned your finitude, lived your finitude, and now redeems your finitude.

If I had to do what Bilbo Baggins did that day, I have wondered if I’d have had the strength and courage to do it. And I’m not talking about the fire-breathing dragon, or the gigantic, bloodthirsty spiders, or the caves filled with goblins. The demise of Smaug, it turns out, wasn’t the end (or even the peak) of Bilbo’s courage. No, the greatest challenge set before him would not make him confront an enemy, but a friend.

As Bilbo and his company of dwarves recover the lost and buried treasure from the fallen dragon, their leader, Thorin, will not rest until he finds one jewel in particular, the King’s jewel, the Arkenstone. As the hunt stretches over days, the mountain gives birth to the second, more dangerous threat.

Bilbo did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which a dragon has long brooded, nor with dwarfish hearts. Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him. Though he had hunted chiefly for the Arkenstone, yet he had an eye for many another wonderful thing that was lying there. (The Hobbit, 265)

This lust hardened Thorin’s heart and began to poison his mind. He soon refuses to deal with the elves and men (his potential allies) at his doorstep and foolishly lays the kindling for a great war. The hobbit senses the fierceness and perilousness of this greed, and so he takes a quietly brave step. He risks his friendship (and his life) to deliver the object of Thorin’s lust (which Bilbo had found and concealed) to the allies the dwarf was now treating as enemies. He sneaks from the camp and goes to the elves and men as they ready for war.

“This is the Arkenstone of Thrain,” said Bilbo, “the Heart of the Mountain; and it is also the heart of Thorin. He values it above a river of gold. I give it to you. It will aid you in your bargaining.” Then Bilbo, not without a shudder, not without a glance of longing, handed the marvelous stone to Bard. (273)

Bilbo’s most courageous act wasn’t creeping down into the dragon’s lair, but walking off alone to incense (and perhaps save) a friend who had gone astray. It wasn’t the big, scary enemy he had prepared for over miles and miles, but the sudden need that emerged in his own camp.

Benevolent Betrayal

Bilbo’s quiet midnight deed of bravery didn’t avert war altogether — goblins and wolves descended on the mountain shortly after, uniting dwarf, elf, man, and wizard. Nor did his actions go over smoothly with Thorin, who unraveled in rage and cast him out of the camp, warning him with violence to never show his face again.

As the Battle of the Five Armies comes to an end, though, and the eagles withdraw (evil having been soundly defeated again), Thorin lies seriously, fatally wounded. Before he dies, he calls for the hobbit.

There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. (290)

Bilbo had largely missed the great war, quickly vanishing behind his ring and then being knocked unconscious by a random, falling rock. With his parting words, Thorin wasn’t talking about fighting goblins and wolves; he was talking about a stone — about a benevolent betrayal. At the doorstep of death, he could now see just how free the hobbit was from the dwarf’s blinding lusts, and that he wisely prized what he could enjoy with others over anything he could have alone. After slaying his share of goblins and wolves, Thorin saw the wisdom and courage in a friend’s correction.

Yes, there may have been “more” at stake for Bilbo — dwarves and goblins and the fate of Middle Earth — but the lesson holds. Often the biggest, most dangerous dragons are the ones closer to home. The more unlikely courage is the courage to lovingly confront sin in those we love.

Wounds That Heal

Where do we see this kind of courageous confrontation in Scripture? We have striking examples of bold and loving correction — the apostle Paul confronting Peter, Nathan confronting King David, Jesus confronting his disciples. As I watched Bilbo hand over Thorin’s heart to the other side, though, my mind wandered to the apostle Paul’s second letter to a church whom he loved.

Despite his complicated and painful history with Corinth, we know Paul loved the believers there intensely. He says of them, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2). As he watched some fall away from Christ, though, that intense love provoked an acute concern. Next verse: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” This fear led him to write a more severe letter of rebuke and warning (that we do not have). This was their Arkenstone moment. Later he says of that lost letter,

Even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it — though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. (2 Corinthians 7:8–9)

“Whom do you love enough to confront when necessary, even if it pains them?”

The letter clearly hurt to read. Almost all correction does, at least at first. Paul’s willingness to wound them, however, was not from a desire to harm them, but from a desire to heal them. “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you” (2 Corinthians 2:4). Who loves you like that? Whom do you love enough to confront when necessary, even if it pains them?

Food and Cheer and Song

While some were grieved into repenting by Paul’s letter, the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians are a hard word for those who continued to reject and rebel against his message and ministry. He has unusually harsh words for those who won’t repent of their quarreling, jealousy, anger, and gossip:

I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them. (2 Corinthians 12:20; 13:2)

Those who won’t turn from their sin will face discipline. A few verses later, he issues an even stronger warning:

I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. (2 Corinthians 13:10)

I don’t want to be severe, he says, but I will if I must. Because I love you, and want what’s best for you, I won’t tolerate sin in you. I’ll risk relational friction, and even separation, to rescue you from the fierce bonds of sin. What struck me recently, though, (and what echoes some of Thorin’s last words) are the very next verses:

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. (2 Corinthians 13:11–13)

In other words, the purpose of all this severity is the felicity of fellowship — joy, restoration, comfort, unity, peace. Or in the kingly dwarf’s words, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Food and cheer and song represent countless things in life we enjoy together. The rewards of courageous confrontation, then, are the table of faith-filled fellowship, the laughter of serious joy, the glory of Christ-exalting worship.

The Greater Commendation

Now we can appreciate why Bilbo’s greatest courage was in carrying that rock and confronting a friend. Tolkien certainly seemed to think so, anyway. As Bilbo left the Arkenstone and began the long midnight walk back, not knowing yet whether he would lose his head for what he’d just done, “an old man, wrapped in a dark cloak” rose from his tent and stopped the hobbit.

“Well done! Mr. Baggins!” he said, clapping Bilbo on the back. “There is always more about you than anyone expects!” It was Gandalf. (274)

It’s at this point of the story — before the stubborn lust of Thorin, and not before the devastating fires of Smaug — where the hobbit receives his commendation.

Maybe God will call you to brave mountains and defy dragons in your lifetime. But he’ll almost certainly call you to give away an Arkenstone or two along the way — to boldly confront someone you love, to be willing to have hard, painful conversations behind the scenes, to call a wandering friend back into the joys of food and cheer and song again.

So, my fellow hobbit, is there a Thorin in your life right now who’s in grave need of your courage?

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which — if you saw it now — you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. —C.S. Lewis

When I’ve read or heard these words over the years, I’ve typically thought of strangers. “It’s a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses” — standing at the bus stop, waiting in line at the grocery store, walking by on the street (all the people I’m tempted to see but never notice). We’re surrounded by immortal souls, all the time — but we’re often tempted to treat them like houseplants. Like nice houseplants, beautiful even, but not like humans — not like eternal souls who will stand before the living God and be ushered into a perpetual, untouchable paradise or a terrifying home of never-ending torment.

Wake up! Lewis says. You’ve never met a mere mortal. Those strangers walking by are not houseplants; they’re wonders wrapped in flesh and blood and need. That’s a good application. Every “random” person you encounter is an eternal marvel — a miracle in the making, or a nightmare, an immortal life worthy of your attention, concern, respect, love.

The quote took on even more meaning, though, when I realized that Lewis doesn’t limit the point to strangers.

No Ordinary Spouses

Keep reading, and the spectacular reality comes uncomfortably close to home:

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another — all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (The Weight of Glory, 45–46)

“All friendships, all loves . . .” he says. “It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry . . . immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” Eternal miracles or nightmares. What dawned on me is that I’m not only tempted to overlook the spiritual potential and destiny of strangers; I’m tempted to do so even with my closest relationships — my friends, my family, my bride, my kids.

Sometimes it’s the people we know the best that we most struggle to see in the light of spiritual reality. They’re almost too familiar, too predictable — too, well, ordinary. But there are no ordinary friends. There are no ordinary classmates or roommates. There are no ordinary students or teachers. There are no ordinary boyfriends or girlfriends, husbands or wives. It is a serious thing to live beside immortals.

Miracles in the Making

Where would Lewis get an idea like everlasting splendors? From verses like Romans 8:16–17:

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

If the Spirit dwells in you, by faith, then you are a child of God. And if you’re a child of God, you will be glorified with God. Have you realized that? You will be like him. God will glorify “ordinary” people like you and me — to the glory of God.

“Sometimes it’s the people we know the best that we most struggle to see in the light of spiritual reality.”

Next verses, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for —” For what? For the appearing of Christ? For the new heavens and new earth? That’s not what Paul mentions here. “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:18–19). The creation wants to see us — what we will become. Are you hearing Lewis yet? And we won’t be God-like splendors for mere centuries or millennia, but forever. “I give them eternal life,” Jesus says, “and they will never perish” (John 10:28).

We are miracles in the making. The oceans, mountains, and stars are lined up outside to get a glimpse of what we’ll become. If you love and follow Jesus, that’s true of you. And here’s the critical turn that Lewis takes: if the dull, uninteresting, ordinary persons you live with (or work with, or coach soccer with, or go to church with) love and follow Jesus, it’ll be true of them too. If you could see what they will be in 150 years, you would see them differently. You would treat them differently. Wouldn’t you?

Nightmares in the Making

Lewis didn’t only say everlasting splendors, though — everlasting splendors or immortal horrors, future miracles or nightmares. Have you reckoned recently with the never-ending destiny of those in your life who will not love Jesus?

For as little as we might think about the blinding glory coming to those who believe, we might think even less about the awful terror awaiting those who don’t. “As for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars” — that is, those who won’t bow and follow Jesus — “their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). One purpose of the vivid imagination and visions of Revelation is to make the depths of hell feel more real. They force us to imagine real people in fire and sulfur and torture, because people we know will really suffer like that, and worse, forever.

Even among those who currently profess faith, we can’t take their future splendor for granted. Hebrews 3:12–13 warns us, “Take care, brothers” — he’s writing to the church, to those who claim to love Jesus now —

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Part of being awake to one another’s immortality is to remember that any of us could be deceived and hardened and destroyed by sin. And if we let sin have its way in us, it will mutilate us. It will make us hideous — “a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.” If we could see what sin does to a person — for now, on the inside, but one day, for all to see — we would pursue and exhort one another more than we do. We’d exhort one another every day.

How to Love Immortals

The truth is that Lewis exposes us. We often live and work and study and play and date functionally oblivious to both heaven and hell — as if we didn’t know that everyone we meet, everyone we love, will spend eternity in one or the other. But there’s no “spiritual Midwest” lying out there between paradise and agony, between the everlasting splendors and the immortal horrors — just heaven and hell, forever.

So, what might all of this mean for our closest relationships? What might this mean for a home, like mine, with a wife and three small kids? First, and perhaps most humbling, it reminds us to pray. Their immortality reminds us how painfully little we control in our relationships. All the things we want most for our spouse, our children, our extended family and friends are things God must do. That doesn’t mean, as we often assume, that there’s nothing we can do. There’s just nothing we can do without God.

Having first prayed, though, what else can we do? We could use more of our interactions to remind loved ones of their immortality. For those who do not yet believe in Jesus, these will likely be unnatural and awkward conversations. How they feel about the conversation doesn’t change the truth. One day soon, they will be an everlasting splendor or an immortal horror. Immortality is worth an enormous amount of awkwardness and friction.

“Christians who sense the reality and urgency of eternity don’t tolerate patterns of sinfulness in one another.”

Even those who do believe in Jesus, though, still need regular, sometimes forceful reminders of their immortality. “Exhort one another every day.” Christians who sense the reality and urgency of eternity don’t tolerate patterns of sinfulness in one another. The love of Christ controls them, so they speak up when others wouldn’t. They seek the sweet and lasting fruit of some relational discomfort. They’re also often unusually faithful encouragers. They know when to warn the wayward, and they know when to lift and strengthen and focus the weary. Every everlasting splendor is the product of consistent, meaningful encouragement.

Perhaps the simplest way, then, to apply the prospect of these two mouth-stopping eternities — future miracles and future nightmares — would be to seek to be (and stay) uncomfortably Christian. Modern life, at least in America, resists this kind of Godwardness. We quietly agree to keep our conversations to what we can see and hear and touch, but everything we can now see and hear and touch will pass away. And when it does, you and everyone you know will become the wonder or horror you will forever be.

When I applied for seminary, I had the naive notion that I would graduate (after just four years) having essentially mastered the Bible. I knew, of course, that I would keep reading it for the rest of my life, even daily, but I figured by then I would be brushing up on what I’d already seen, not hiking up the mountain anymore.

Less than a week into my first semester, that naive notion mercifully crashed, took on water, and drowned. And from its grave, a new hunger emerged, a happy realization that I would never exhaust this book, that if I kept reading, I would see more year by year, not less. Not only could I not master this book in four years, but I came to see that I couldn’t in forty years — or four hundred, for that matter, if God gave me centuries. No, my time in seminary was a serious education in how to be gladly mastered by the Book, ready to be awakened, chastened, exhorted, and thrilled by it for as long as I live.

The iceberg on which my naivete sweetly crashed and sank was one of the happiest men I’ve ever met, a pastor who has served for decades, and devoted many of those years to teaching naive men like me to study, live, and teach the word of God. Now a decade removed from seminary, I firmly believe that nothing I learned was more valuable than witnessing, week after week, a humble, joyful, wide-eyed Tom Steller open the Bible with us.

That Kind of Happy

By the time I started seminary, I had memorized Psalm 1:1–2, but meeting Pastor Tom brought two of the words in particular into fuller, more tangible life: blessed and delight.

Blessed is the man     who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,nor stands in the way of sinners,     nor sits in the seat of scoffers;but his delight is in the law of the Lord,     and on his law he meditates day and night.

Walking through Scripture with Pastor Tom, verse by verse, even phrase by phrase, was like tasting honey for the first time. When King David says that the rules of the Lord are “sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb,” we know that honey is sweet, even if we’ve never had any. But actually tasting honey for ourselves makes a verse like Psalm 19:10 really sing. That’s what happened as I watched Tom Steller savor Ephesians. He was (and is!) the blessed man, and his delight in the word was nearly tangible. He’s that kind of happy.

“He treasured what he saw far more than how he might be seen.”

Who knows how many times he had been through Ephesians in his life? And this wasn’t even his first time teaching the book. Yet he came to class expectant, on the edge of his seat, like a five-year-old just before the ice cream comes. You left class wanting to read your Bible more because you wanted to see more of what he saw, to feel what he felt, to live and pastor like he did.

That Kind of Humble

Over time, digging into chapter after chapter with Tom, we slowly uncovered the quiet secret to his joy in Bible reading: humility. Even after reading these verses for years, studying these verses for years, even teaching these verses for years, he came to class to learn — to see what he had not seen (or to correct what he thought he had seen). Don’t be mistaken, he had deep, durable convictions, but he held those convictions with an equally deep and durable humility.

No verse was too familiar. No question seemed threatening. No alternative translation or interpretation was discarded too quickly. In his fifties, he took as much or even more joy in the insights a twentysomething stumbled upon. He wanted to see everything there was to see in these chapters, and he didn’t care how he saw it or who saw it first, whether a fellow pastor or professor, one of his students, or a second grader. He treasured what he saw far more than how he might be seen.

In this rare freedom from pride, he modeled what John Piper says about supernatural, soul-stirring Bible reading:

When the Spirit works in the reading of Scripture, we are humbled, and Christ is exalted. Our old preference for self-exaltation is replaced with a passion for Christ-exaltation. This new passion is the key that throws open a thousand windows in Scripture to let in the brightness of God’s glory. (Reading the Bible Supernaturally, 248)

That’s what it was like in Tom’s classroom, flooded with light. Each week, more windows appeared, opening up some fresh and vivid view of God. Because he never assumed he’d seen it all, even in his favorite chapters and verses, he saw more than most could. And then more again the next day.

The Unblessed Man

Providentially, I met a second pastor during that first week of seminary, a retired pastor who served at the food shelf where I worked. While he was kind and generous, he and Tom were dramatically different pastors (and Christians). Getting to know them, I learned that their many and varied differences had their root in one underlying divergence.

“You left class wanting to read your Bible more because you wanted to see more of what he saw.”

One day at the food shelf, after the staff finished reading our daily chapter of the Bible together, I was talking to the retired pastor about something we read that morning. At some point in the conversation, I asked what Bible reading looked like for him at this stage of his life, imagining that retirement might afford even more time to slow down, meditate, and enjoy Scripture. I’ll never forget what he said next (and where I was sitting when he said it):

Oh, I don’t read the Bible much anymore, just the couple days I’m here at the food shelf. I’ve read it all many times before. Now that I’m retired, I can focus on other things.

Here was a man who had devoted his vocational life to Christian ministry, and yet the Bible had grown old, unappealing, even unnecessary. God himself has spoken in ink and paper and wonder, and yet somehow he’d seen enough.

While Pastor Tom woke up, day after day, to new and wider windows, this man pulled the shades. If Tom’s bright eyes were a towering lighthouse of hope and reward for an aspiring pastor, this man’s dim eyes were an ominous cloud of warning.

Minutes from the Mountains

The retired pastor incriminated himself, exposing a shameful, arrogant ignorance — and yet he’s not the stranger I wish he were. We may not say out loud what he was so willing to say, but we betray ourselves whenever we race past or rush through this book. Satan stands beside all our windows, distracting us, interrupting us, taunting us, entertaining us. His warped lenses make the oceans of Scripture look like thimbles and the lions like kittens. He turns awe-inspiring mountains into molehills.

But even at his murderous best, Satan’s fighting uphill. The brilliance and beauty of the Bible shines through even the heaviest blackout curtains. If we slow down enough to see what’s there, with the Spirit’s help, we’re just minutes from sunlight and grandeur, from reality and vitality, from hope and joy. Wisdom promises this kind of Bible reading to those who come humble and hungry:

If you call out for insight     and raise your voice for understanding,if you seek it like silver     and search for it as for hidden treasures,then you will understand the fear of the Lord     and find the knowledge of God. (Proverbs 2:3–5)

I hope you have a Tom Steller somewhere in your life, someone who throws open windows for you in Bible reading, someone who won’t stop looking and asking and listening, someone who helps you over tall hurdles, out of deep ruts, through thick forests, someone who loves watching you see more — and seeing more through you.

And I hope you, like me, get to be his kind of happy.

I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself. —Gandalf (The Hobbit)

This year, I finally returned with Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain. While many of the paths and perils were familiar, the whole adventure felt noticeably different. When I first read The Hobbit in my twenties, life felt more like the perilous journey — mountains to climb, places to discover, new friends to meet, dragons to face. Since then, I’ve added a wife, a house, and three small children. Now, I can relate more to the security and predictability of the Shire.

That is not to say that life with a wife and small children is all warm biscuits and second breakfasts. As any young family knows, some days at home feel an awful lot like the dark, goblin tunnels beneath the Misty Mountains. But the gravitational force of family life often draws us (by necessity, to some degree) away from risk and toward safer, more familiar rhythms of living. The Shire, notice, isn’t portrayed as a problem — until its comforts might keep a man from stepping out into the right battles.

The Hobbit resonates with us so deeply, all these years later, because the tension in Bilbo is a tension in all of us. We want to live for more than our little comfortable life, and yet we want to preserve the sense of security and control that a little comfortable life affords us. Then Jesus knocks and calls us out of our spiritual shires: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24–25).

Because I know you, like me, need unlikely courage to do whatever Jesus has called you to do, I want to briefly draw you back into Bilbo’s great journey.

More Than a Calling

We’ll begin where all journeys must: at the beginning. Where does this sudden “Tookishness” emerge in the hobbit? The Tooks, an unusually brave and adventurous brood of hobbits, were Bilbo’s ancestors on his mother’s side. And so, throughout the story, Tolkien names Bilbo’s newfound courage after this family line.

When the renowned wizard first darkens the door of Bilbo’s hole in the hill, with his tall pointed blue hat, grey cloak, silver scarf, and long white beard, he doesn’t find the brave hobbit we meet later in the tale. Gandalf announces he’s recruiting for an adventure, and Bilbo melts into a trembling puddle on the floor. The wizard bears with the flustered hobbit and eventually presses his mission:

“For your old grandfather Took’s sake, . . . I will give you what you asked for.”

“I beg your pardon, I haven’t asked for anything!”

“Yes, you have! Twice now. My pardon. I give it you. In fact I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you.” (8–9)

This call, it turns out, was more than an invitation. It began doing something in Bilbo. The fearful hobbit again refuses, but invites Gandalf back the next day. And Gandalf does return, but not before sending thirteen dwarves along first.

Awakening Tookishness

When all the dwarves and Gandalf had arrived, they did what dwarves love to do: they sang. They sang of mountains and caverns, of hoards and wars, of history and legacy, of dragons and of gold. And as they sang, something happened inside of Bilbo, a sudden spring broke over his long, cozy winter:

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. (18)

This isn’t a simple courage. It’s a courage ignited by curiosity and beauty, by evil and need, by love and longing. Isn’t that a lot what it was like when you first began to realize who Jesus is and what life with him might be like? If God is truly calling — by his Spirit, somewhere deep in our hearts — when the invitation comes, we sense the wonder of a whole new world, of mountains unseen and caves unexplored, of dangers to be faced and dragons to be slain, of gold to be uncovered.

Why else would words like these draw us? “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” No one signs up for a cross — unless there’s greater joy and beauty on the other side of that cross than there is on this one. Unless we were made for a fullness of life we’ll only find if we brave the forests and caves before us, the goblins and dragons set against us. Suddenly, the hobbit holes we’ve made for ourselves feel smaller, more cramped. We were made for mountains.

Without Bed and Breakfast

After Gandalf introduces Bilbo as his chosen burglar, the dwarves understandably doubt his judgment (especially after the hobbit faints while hearing about the adventure). Gloin openly questions whether he could handle the dangers of a dragon’s cave. Bilbo overhears him from the other room, and then (Tolkien tells us),

The Took side had won. He suddenly felt he would go without bed and breakfast to be thought fierce. (20)

He emerged from hiding and said to the dwarves, “Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert” (21). Bilbo barely recognized himself in the moment (and in later moments comes to regret this burst of courage), but Gandalf’s call had changed him. “If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes” (21–22).

“Any calling of God carries with it a sufficiency for the calling.”

So it is for those who’ve been called by God. “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). This calling of God carries with it a sufficiency for the calling. When Christ effectively calls you to follow him, there is suddenly a lot more in you than others can see, and a deal more than you have any idea of yourself.

A Very Different Hobbit

Through mountains and forests, goblins and wolves, we do find a lot more in our hobbit than anyone could see at first. He spies on giant trolls (and nearly gets eaten), leaps over a jealous, murderous creature hunting him in the caves, takes on giant spiders in the dark forest of Mirkwood, rescues his friends from the Wood-elves prison, and then, most memorably of all, he braves Smaug’s cave alone.

He crept noiselessly down, down, down into the dark. He was trembling with fear, but his little face was set and grim. Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago. He had not had a pocket-handkerchief for ages. He loosened his dagger in its sheath, tightened his belt, and went on.

If Gandalf had shown him at the start where he would end up, Bilbo would have never left his hole. But facing trolls, goblins, and dragons made him a very different hobbit. What has God called you to do that feels too uncomfortable, too costly, too unlike you? Who might you become if you trusted him and took the risk?

As Bilbo creeps down further, the fire begins to burn redder and redder before him and a deafening gurgling sound throbbed in his ears. All his senses confirmed what he wished wasn’t true.

It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.

The bravest thing he ever did was that first, quiet, resolute step. And isn’t it the same in so many of our battles — in conflict and crisis, in correction and confession, in evangelism and ministry, in marriage and family and so many of our relationships? What small, brave first step could you take, even today? You may be surprised what courage you stumble into.

Your Unlikely Courage

What might Jesus be calling you to do that feels too inconvenient or costly, at least right now? Where do you feel yourself too bound to the comforts and security of your routine? What could you step out and do for Jesus, whether large or small, that would take real, unlikely courage?

As I said at the beginning, the mountains and dragons often change from season to season. As a young father, I am learning that raising toddlers, with love and patience and a resolve to teach them Jesus, sometimes requires supernatural strength and courage. As one of my favorite parenting articles says,

There is a war on children, and we are all, in one way or another, playing some role in it. Every time we move forward as faithful parents, . . . we are wrestling demons — because there is little the demons hate more than little children.

“Often, the dragon within us will demand the most courage from us.”

And demons hate whatever good God has called you to do in his name — the difficult marriage that needs repairing and reviving, the workplace that desperately needs the light of Christ, the children who need a Sunday School teacher, the friendship that’s cooled and grown distant, the local food shelf looking for volunteers, the grieving widow who’s learning loneliness. And in and around all those callings, souls are dying, needing rescue before the flames fall. Our neighbors, co-workers, and friends live in the perils below the Lonely Mountain but imagine themselves in the safety of the Shire. Will we tell them?

The fiercest and most intimidating dragons, though, loom even larger and closer to home. Every day we wake up, we face temptations to overcome and sins to confess and kill. Will we leave behind our comforts and insecurities and fight, or will we quietly cuddle up with our secret sins — with lust, with bitterness, with envy, with anger, with pride? Often, the dragon within us will demand the most courage from us.

Every stage of life as a Christian, and every area of the persistently faithful Christian life, requires some unlikely courage. My nearly forty years now has taught me that Jesus will keep stubbornly calling us out of comfortable and familiar, because he loves us — and because we were made for mountains.

We often think of creation — forests and oceans, tornados and earthquakes, lions, tigers, and bears — as wild and untamed compared with normal life. And we’re not wrong. When God placed Adam into the world he had made, even before that world fell into disorder through sin, he charged the man “to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Part of how humanity images God, then, is by bringing purpose and order to a feral world.

Look closer, however, or perhaps deeper, and we see that creation is not as wild as we typically imagine. Through the fall, Paul tells us, “the creation was subjected to futility” and suffers in “bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:20–21). It’s unfenced and yet now enslaved. It’s untamed and yet trapped. The wonders God has made are held back and smothered by sin. Even the deepest, most dangerous oceans are anchored and weighed down by the curse. Even the strongest, healthiest lions are weak and sick with judgment. Even the most brilliant sunsets are shadows of what they might be.

Of what they will be. One day soon, God will make all we know unmistakably new. Have you learned to long, and pray, for the wonders of a better world to come?

Country of ‘Not Good’

How many of us have reckoned with the glorious potential of a renewed creation — and with the devastating condition of the current one? When God made the world and called it all good, he wasn’t looking at the world as we know it. No, when mankind fell from glory, the oceans, mountains, and stars fell with us. Sin dragged continents of beauty and purity into the awful, nauseating swamp of the curse.

After Adam and Eve took and ate what was not theirs to eat, the consequences were felt far and deep and wide. “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,” God says to Adam, “and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3:17). Death and destruction, injury and disease, earthquakes and tornados, malice and treachery, droughts and floods, toil and trouble. Every inch of creation was warped and stained by sin. A cloud 25,000 miles wide fell over the earth, and centuries later it has not lifted. Were God to again survey the sun and the galaxies, the hills and seas, the trees and flowers, the birds and whales, the lions, tigers, and bears, he would no longer call it “good,” at least not in the same way.

Think about that. God meticulously (and effortlessly) painted a living, breathing mural of his creativity and worth, and then stepped back to admire and savor what he had made. It was breathtakingly beautiful. And yet before the first child was born, sin spilled oil over his masterpiece. Sin vandalized and leveled the dream home he had built for us. It was breathtakingly bleak. And that’s still our address today. We now walk and work and play on streets and corners of “Not good.”

We live in a wild and arresting world that’s been arrested by sin — for now. The creation violently treads water, thrashing and gasping for air, but only “until the time for restoring all the things” (Acts 3:21).

If Rocks Could Cry Out

When we think about that world to come, we may have an easy enough time imagining aspects of our new, glorified bodies. Eyes without glasses. Heads without aches. Joints without arthritis. Necks and backs without stiffness. Healthy blood pressures without pills. Organs without cancer. Never struggling to sleep. Never searching for a prescription. Never wondering what’s wrong.

The creation itself “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). If the rocks could cry out, they would go on and on about what God will make out of those who are in Christ, about the wonder of generations cured of sin, about how our holiness will reflect light and life into every corner of creation. Creation’s been let in on a secret about humanity that so many humans never learn: we won’t always be this broken, this tired, this opposed, this confused, this prone to wander. The glorious God will soon glorify us.

And creation’s not just waiting to see what we will be; Paul says it’s longing to see us — eyes fixed on the horizon, holding its breath, waiting for a glimpse of the sun. Why? Because when we become our new, immortal, glorified selves, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). The glory of the new heavens and new earth will be our glory in Christ, to the glory of Christ.

What might a place like that be like? What will it be like to witness the regeneration, not just of souls, but of the whole universe? As easy as it may be to imagine some aspects of a glorified human body, we can have a harder time imagining God healing and renewing creation — but he will.

When the World Sheds the Curse

Imagine, for a moment, whatever you love about this world finally being set free and freshly charged with the glory of God.

What might the shores along O‘ahu look like glorified? What about the endless fields of tulips in the Netherlands? How beautifully might a choir of nightingales sing? Will we get to listen to rain fall and thunder roll without ever wondering what damage might be done? What might a Southern Californian orange taste like, right off the tree? How much sweeter will fresh strawberries be? Can you begin to smell the rose gardens, brighter than ever and stripped of their thorns? Can you see yourself canoeing glorified rivers, climbing glorified trails, biking through glorified fields, sitting beside glorified lakes? How soon will it all stop feeling like some wild, impossible dream?

Outside of Scripture, no one has whet my appetite for the new creation more than Randy Alcorn has. He says, “To get a picture of Heaven — which will one day be centered on the New Earth — you don’t need to look up at the clouds; you simply need to look around you and imagine what all this would be like without sin and death and suffering and corruption” (Heaven, 17). Do you ever do that? Few things are more lethal to worldliness than to imagine what this world might really be like when it sheds the curse, when God washes the oil spill from his painting and breathes it into new life.

And the light animating it all will be the nail-scarred, once-dead man on the throne. At the center will be the Lion of Judah, roaring over every mile and creature,the Lamb of God, slain to make it all possible and beautiful. John Piper writes,

We will never forget that every sight, every sound, every fragrance, every touch, and every taste in the new world was purchased by Christ for his undeserving people. This world — with all its joy — cost him his life. Every pleasure of every kind will intensify our thankfulness and love for Jesus. (Providence, 687)

Seeing the New Heavens Now

As stunning as that future day will be, what God will reveal about us then is actually already true. Listen closely: “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). We won’t become sons that day; we’ll finally get to see the fullness of our sonship. A few verses earlier, Paul writes,

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs. (Romans 8:14–17)

The new creation, with our new bodies, will be a worldwide, centuries-long parade of what God has already done in our hearts through faith. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation — right now (2 Corinthians 5:17). The apostle John saw this same reality:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. . . . Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1–2)

Oh we will be changed, in the twinkling of the eye, at the last trumpet, but we won’t be born again again. If we are in Christ, the new heavens already live in us. And because his Spirit lives in us, everything that will make the new creation so captivating and satisfying is already ours in him.

I imagine the short paragraph from Jeremiah Burroughs landed like it did that morning, in part, because my 2-year-old had just thrown an entire bowl of cereal on the floor — again. An exceedingly small affliction, to be sure, but not an exceedingly small mess (or an exceedingly rare one, for that matter).

Unbeknownst to me, the milky Cheerios strewn across my kitchen floor prepared the way for a life-changing illustration. Hours later, I read,

It is a saying of Luther: “The sea of God’s mercies should swallow up all our particular afflictions.” Name any affliction that is upon you: there is a sea of mercy to swallow it up. If you pour a pailful of water on the floor of your house, it makes a great show, but if you throw it into the sea, there is no sign of it. So, afflictions considered in themselves, we think are very great, but let them be considered with the sea of God’s mercies we enjoy, and then they are not so much, they are nothing in comparison. (209)

“If you have God in your affliction, your burden is but a bucket in the ocean.”

Name any affliction that is upon you — chronic pain or sudden illness, persistent relational tension, the thorns and thistles of your workplace, a tortuous inability to fall (or stay) asleep, the loss of someone you love — name any affliction that is upon you, and there’s a sea of mercy to swallow it up. If you have God in your affliction, your burden is but a bucket in the ocean.

Buckets of Affliction

Now, to say that a burden is but a bucket (or “nothing in comparison”) is not to say that it is actually nothing. To suggest so would gut Burroughs’ scene of its power and belittle the immense mercy of God. No, as we all know, even a pailful of water can be truly disorienting. And life among our storms often makes heavy buckets feel like ponds, or rivers, or even oceans.

Few have carried suffering better than the apostle Paul, and yet hear him describe his “bucket” in a particular season:

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. (2 Corinthians 1:8–9)

Notice, receiving affliction well does not mean downplaying affliction. Paul despaired of life itself — and he doesn’t apologize for feeling (or speaking) that way. The bucket of water felt like a death sentence. And he wanted the others to know his pain was that intense, that bitter, that bleak (“We do not want you to be unaware, brothers . . .”).

“Receiving affliction well does not mean downplaying affliction.”

No, faith doesn’t downplay affliction, but it does place our sometimes overwhelming affliction next to the always overwhelming mercy of God in Christ.

Oceans of Mercy

The power of Burroughs’ imagery, then, doesn’t come from diminishing our suffering or distracting us from it, but from setting our suffering in proper proportion to reality. Does anything we experience distort ultimate, spiritual reality more than suffering does? If we who are in Christ could see everything as it really is, our affliction — any affliction — would look smaller than it feels, wouldn’t it? In many cases, a lot smaller.

As we’ve seen, Paul felt his pain acutely, and he didn’t ignore it or shy away from it or even keep it to himself. But he also wouldn’t let it blind him to the endless waves of mercy washing over him. Just a few verses earlier, with affliction crashing around him, he can still say,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction. (2 Corinthians 1:3–4)

In all our affliction, his mercy is more. Through eyes filled with tears, he can still see the sea. He knows that nothing — not beatings, not imprisonments, not riots, not sleepless nights, not hunger — nothing can separate him from the love of Christ. And so he always has more comfort than sorrow. Even while he has real, painful reasons to despair, he has even more reasons to bless God.

Because the apostle Paul stood along the same shores Luther and Burroughs later found, he could say of great, unwanted, unbearable suffering, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Our buckets are shallow and brief beside the unseen oceans awaiting us. Everything we ever lost and endured will be swallowed up by “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).

Joy Hiding in Buckets

When we lay our pails of affliction beside the sea of God’s mercy, we can begin to make sense, can’t we, of this strange marriage in Scripture between suffering and joy (see Romans 5:3; Colossians 1:24; 1 Thessalonians 1:6). Again and again, we see saints not only finding the strength to bear and endure suffering, but actually learning to rejoice, even while the floors are still soaking wet.

Paul, for instance, can go as far as saying, “In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (2 Corinthians 7:4). In all our affliction — not before or after or even beneath. And not a slow, weak drip of joy, but overflowing joy. This kind of joy perseveres in suffering, and even sometimes grows — like red and yellow and deep purple tulips in beds of snow. How could joy thrive out in the bitter cold? Because, in the right hands, unwanted buckets remind us to look beyond to the ocean.

A chapter later, Paul observes the same marvel in the church at Macedonia. Notice, again, how surprising joy finds its way into the fires of suffering: “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part” (2 Corinthians 8:2). Joy didn’t wither in the throes of adversity and poverty, but amazingly swelled and overflowed. Their buckets were many and too heavy to carry, but they were also thimbles lost in far greater waters.

And the same miracle happens among the Hebrews: “You had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property . . .” (Hebrews 10:34). We might understand them accepting what happened here, but joyfully accepting? How does someone rejoice while they suffer this kind of evil? Finish the verse: “ . . . since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” Since they had set their buckets beside the wider, deeper seas of God’s mercies. How much can we really lose? How much can anyone really take from us?

Your Feet in the Sand

Few of us need help seeing our buckets of trouble. We regularly trip and stumble over them and then clean up the messes. The buckets may be bigger or smaller, newer and older, fuller or lighter, but we all have them.

We need help, however, seeing the massive and wild seas beyond our buckets. We’re far more acquainted with our light and momentary afflictions than we are with all that God has worked and promised to those who love him. We’re experts in our miseries and infants in his mercies. And we wonder why our life often feels like one big, messy bucket after another.

The good news is that, if we’re in Christ, we already live on oceanfront property. Many of us, however, need to get out and feel the sand more. We spend too much time cleaning up messes in rooms without windows — all while the shore’s just a few feet away. But we need to see the water every day — to hear the roar of the waves, to smell the freshness of the air, to taste of the ocean, to search and search for where it ends.

So what habits help you sense and wonder at the mercy of God in Christ? How often do you lay down your buckets and let your feet feel the sand? What relationships help you consistently wade out further into his word and his work? Where does the wider lens of spiritual reality come into clearer focus?

If we’ll lift up our eyes, his mercy will swallow any sorrow.

Recently, our family was staying with a family we love when they suffered a miscarriage. The wife had just finished her first trimester. The baby would have been number six for them, their second son, a boy they all loved deeply without meeting him. The family wept for hours.

Now, I could say more about the quiet and common pain of miscarriage (my wife and I suffered one early in our marriage), or about what I learned about grief as I watched this family lose this baby together, as a family. But one of the things that struck me most was how the church showed up and loved them in their loss. Because we happened to be staying with them that week, we saw more than most would ever get to see.

The ears were the first to come, leaning in and listening well. But the feet weren’t far behind, arriving early and ready to run errands. Then came the hands, carrying flowers and Starbucks drinks and donuts for the kids. And with them, the arms that wrapped themselves tight around the family and wouldn’t let go. The noses followed, with some of their favorite meals. The mouths were slower than normal to speak, but came with meaningful words of courage and hope. And sprinkled among the rest were the eyes, attentive and filled with tears.

A Hundred Roads to the Hurting

The tangible love we witnessed exposed a profound oneness in that unusual church, but the expressions of that love were anything but uniform. Some came right away; some the next day; some later in the week. Some could swing by for only a few minutes; others stayed longer. Some just dropped something off with a note, to give the family space to rest. Some brought food; others brought an iced macchiato or a taro milk tea. Most of them cried.

It’s hard to describe how unusual and heartbreaking and beautiful the whole scene was. This church had learned how to grieve together, to carry each other’s burdens, to show up in hard moments. So where does this strange, otherworldly love come from? From a strange and generous kind of people.

The apostle Paul saw a scene not unlike the love my family witnessed. He writes to the church at Corinth,

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. (2 Corinthians 8:1–2)

The apostle is calling the believers in Corinth to give to the desperate needs of the embattled church in Jerusalem. He’s asking them to find their way to move toward the hurting, even if, in this case, the hurting are eight hundred miles away. To help inspire their generosity, he shows them just how much God can do when a church leans into suffering.

Unlikely Help and Generosity

The churches in Macedonia were not doing well by worldly standards. They were afflicted themselves, bearing the pain and weight of their own hardships. And not just normal affliction, Paul says, but severe affliction — the kind that cuts deeper, spreads further, and lasts longer.

And in the midst this awful affliction, making their valley even scarier and more upsetting, they were running out of money. Again, this wasn’t typical poverty; it was extreme poverty, some of them perhaps putting hungry kids to bed, their hollow eyes searching for hope that tomorrow might be different. Can you hear their parents pleading, through tears and stomachaches, “Lord, give us this day our daily bread”?

Yet, in the storms of affliction and the shadows of scarcity, we find an outstretched hand, a bright and warm light beating back the darkness, a wealth of generosity. And behind that outstretched hand, an even more surprising smile — an impossible smile, really. An abundant joy. With God, a people without any earthly wealth had found a way to be wealthy toward others. A people burdened with their own needs found more than enough to meet someone else’s.

If even the severely afflicted and seriously needy could move toward the suffering, how about the lightly afflicted and the rarely hungry? How might we find and experience what stirred up such unlikely help and generosity? Before holding out our hand, we first lift up our eyes to God.

Godward Otherness

The kind of people who are ready to move toward suffering when it comes — even in affliction, even in poverty, even when everyone would understand if they focused on themselves — are the kind of people who are always moving toward God. Paul continues,

They gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints — and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. (2 Corinthians 8:3–5)

The saints in Macedonia were not only willing to give, but begged to give. They had tasted the deeper pleasures of sacrifice (see Acts 20:35), and they wouldn’t surrender that joy without a fight. How did they arrive there? What path took them to such happy selflessness? “They gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” They gave beyond their means, they gave far more than anyone expected, because they had given themselves to God.

“An unusually generous life will always be an unusually Godward one.”

They had not set their hope on the possibility of better, more comfortable circumstances. They weren’t tempted by the uncertainty of riches. No, they had set their hearts on God. And a heart set on God learns to define words like wealth, poverty, risk, sacrifice, and security differently. As they surrendered their claim on their earthly possessions, they stumbled into a treasure that could not be counted (1 Timothy 6:18–19). An unusually generous life will always be an unusually Godward one.

Marriage of Abundance and Need

Faithful Christianity, however, is never merely God or people, but God then people. “They gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” The sweetness of enjoying God drove the Macedonians to bravely step into the sorrows and loss around them (in this case, in the church at Jerusalem).

Some of us need to be reminded to begin with God. Others need to be exhorted to regularly, tangibly emerge from communion with God and meet some real need. Notice how God allows abundance and need to dance in the church:

I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.” (2 Corinthians 8:13–15)

In any given church — in your church — God has married real abundance and real need. Just like the needs, the abundance comes in various kinds, at various times, to various people. In some seasons, you’ll be especially needy, and in others, especially supplied. You’ll be needy in ways others aren’t, and rich in ways others lack. And this marriage is a shadow of an even greater love, when the God of infinite abundance took on need to make us truly wealthy: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Love in the local church, Paul says, should look a lot like the manna that sustained God’s people in the wilderness. Except instead of sending it from the clouds, God now delivers and provides through the body of Christ, the local church — more specifically, through you and me.

In Every Good Work

The kind of generosity Paul has in mind isn’t only financial. In fact, most generosity in the church isn’t financial. It’s costly, for sure, but often not in dollars and cents. Listen to the apostle summarize his burden for the church:

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6–8)

“Whoever you are, and whatever you have, God will give you enough to overflow to others, especially those in need.”

In every good work. Not only in coins delivered to Jerusalem, but in home-cooked meals and familiar living rooms, in notes of encouragement and unexpected phone calls, in pots of coffee and thoughtful questions, in visits to the valleys of grief. Whoever you are, and whatever you have, God will give you enough to overflow to others, especially those in need.

So find your way to move toward the hurting. Don’t assume someone else is checking in. Don’t assume someone else will send a meal. Don’t assume they’re overwhelmed with messages and visits. When the trial comes — when sickness falls, when the job disappears, when the marriage collapses, when a loved one dies — assume God plans to meet one of their many needs through you.