The phrase, “the tip of the iceberg” is a common metaphor for things of consequence which are only visible or detectable in part. In comparison they are almost entirely beneath the surface, unseen and unappreciated. The most significant fact of course, as the sad story of the Titanic tells us, is that the unseen part is every bit as real and as solid as that which is seen. So it is with life itself.
All around us and in us is a spiritual world which we fail to be aware of, and we have the tendency to dismiss or ignore it because it’s so different to the things we’re normally able to detect. This world is entirely alien to what we know now, but it’s one which we need to look to in faith:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Jesus likened his own passing from this world not as the end of his life, but as the way of producing more life. He taught that this life is not something to be held onto, as if it were all there is, but that it should be seen as the gateway to abundant, lasting life:
Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life (John 12:24).
Jesus also pictured the life he gives as a spring of eternal, life-giving water:
“… whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).
He went further, saying that anyone who holds onto this life and lives only for this world will lose even what he has. However, the one who surrenders his life in this world for Him will gain immeasurably more than he loses:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it (Matthew 16:24-25).
It’s not possible for us to comprehend eternity. We only know the temporal. We’re here for such a short time, and everything and everyone in our lives are around us for only a little while. In contrast, eternity keeps going on and never ends, in any dimension there is. Not only will our lives know no endings or goodbyes in eternity, so our experience of reality will be infinitely greater. The most amazing aspects, experiences and pleasures of this world are tiny and pathetic in contrast to the greatness of those we will know in heaven.
I wanted fulfillment in this world. I imagine you did and do also. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be satisfied and thrilled for longer than just a few moments at a time. It’s so difficult sometimes to appreciate and accept that our best life – our real life – will come to us when we’re no longer in this world. It’s tempting to almost demand it now, though we cannot. We’re tempted to think that If God really cared about us He would give us what we want now. But we’re just the seeds of our eternal selves. Our real lives, as they should be, are yet to come. We’re on a learning curve in this world, while our God learns the condition of our hearts. This life is just a shadow; a suggestion; a hint; an introduction; a preparation: a deposit of that which is to come.
There is a condition to the completion of our existence. It’s the question, “What did we do with God’s Son?” Our treatment of Jesus Christ, the only son of God, determines our future. There’s an allegory that’s been going around in different forms for perhaps centuries. It goes something like this.
A group of people stood to be the benefactors of a certain very wealthy man who had passed away. The wealthy man’s only blood relative was a son, but he had died tragically, leaving the fortune to be divided among friends or associates. At the reading of the will, the executor began to share the document. It said, “I leave a portrait of my son, to be given to the first of my friends who wishes to claim it”. The room was silent for a full minute. The son had been disliked and shunned. He was odd and unimpressive. He was not the most handsome man, and the portrait was poorly painted and in a frame of plain old wood. What these people had come for was the money, the lands and the assets; not a picture of someone they’d never cared for.
Finally one man sitting at the back of the room raised his hand. “I’ll take it”, he said. “He was a good friend of mine”.
An assistant handed over the portrait. The lawyer read on, and the room was now bursting with tension and excitement:
“I leave all my money, my lands and my assets – n their totality – to the person who accepts the portrait of my son”.
We all have the opportunity to gain a fortune which we cannot even imagine or calculate, beyond anything we could hope to have in this world. All we have to do to inherit it is reverence and accept into our lives Jesus Christ, the Son of the great God, and the creator and owner of life itself.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 