Glorious Times Ahead

The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

-Romans 8.19-21

All of creation waits for the glorious times ahead. In anticipation, we all wait on the edge of our seats. All of creation. That means the trees and the sky. The animals. The river. The city. You and me. The created world is almost bursting it can hardly wait. New creation is just over the hill there. It is beyond what we can see.

Several paragraphs in Romans 8 create so much wonder in my soul in the way the best stories do. Tiny glimpses of a creation waiting to be redeemed. Waiting in the story becomes our own real waiting because we are in the Story. We are creation. It is not a tale from a book, and yet it is.

We can sit in wonder and have souls filled with wonder and then read passages in Romans or books that capture new creation and the vision of it so beautifully. It requires a lot of imagination, which might be why it is difficult for many to think about. I think in my mind about the vision in The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis or in Lilith by George MacDonald. These are the most breathtaking of visions, which captures my imagination and creative soul, and yet they both fall short off what it will truly be. It will be familiar, but far better than we know.

No words we have can convey such perfected beauty of creation that will come. We can scarcely imagine. This should be exciting to us and create that joyful anticipation deep in our hearts.

(I took this photo at the Tynemouth Castle and Priory Ruins, Tynemouth, England. A breathtaking place of history and beauty on a cliff overlooking the North Sea)