Renewed and Ready

7/24 - Gottfried Oosterwal

By: Pacific Press Author

It is difficult to imagine what forever means. We are constantly caught up in cascades of change. Everything in us and around us is in a constant flux of growth and development, decline, decay, and disappearance. Empires have come and gone. Kingdoms have blossomed and then disappeared. Cultures have developed and then declined. Nothing seems permanent. Everything is constantly in transition. Even we human beings are like the grass in the field.

Over and against this impermanence of our earthly existence stands the kingdom of God. It will last forever. So will God's honor and glory, His covenant and His law, His justice and redemption, His power and His love. And in His kingdom, life itself will last forever. Death will be no more, and the redeemed will reign as kings in all eternity.

To the people of the Tor, the notion of eternity was so new that the only way they could express it in their language was by taking a deep breath, holding it, and then slowly releasing it while saying "Gooynemera-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-." The longer one could hold one's breath, the longer the word would become - and the deeper their expression of eternity. So simple. And yet so profound. We ourselves cannot fathom it, and we gasp for air when we think of a reign and a love that will last forever.


From The Lord's Prayer Through Primitive Eyes by Gottfried Oosterwal, p 154

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