IT'S ALL GRAVY

I’ve tried to explain it to a few people before, but they just don’t seen to get where I'm coming from. They want to argue the Scriptures with me and tell me that the resurrection is the cornerstone of our faith. That if Jesus didn’t rise from the grave, we are of all men most forsaken. Thing is, I know that’s the truth. I know that’s sound theology. I understand that with my head, but in my heart everything after God's forgiveness is all ‘gravy’. It’s ‘dessert’. It’s over the top.

If Jesus were to look me in the eye and tell me that ‘This is it, there is no Heaven. Your life on earth is all you get - once around and your gone - you will live and die. You have your time here on this earth and that will be the end of it. There is no eternal life, but while you live I want you to know that I love you and you are forgiven. Go and live in peace.’ I would still take it. Just to be forgiven by Him is so much more than I deserve, so much more than I could hope for.

For Him to look at me and say ‘I love you and I forgive you’ for this lifetime, let alone to give me the promise of a world to come, is so much more than I could ever hope for, so much more than I would have dared to ask from Him. Anything beyond that forgiveness . . . eternal life . . . heaven, (pardon me while I mix my metaphor’s) that’s all ‘icing on the cake', to someone who didn’t have the nerve to even ask for the ‘cake’. They’re all ‘extras’ as far as I’m concerned. I would have ‘settled’ for ‘forgiven’. Just to have Him come near, to experience His peace, His love, His forgiveness in this lifetime would have been more than enough.

But God is so good, while it would have been enough to have Him draw near and offer me His forgiveness in this life, He has promised me that it will never end. His love and forgiveness is for this life and the next. And He promises that the last will be better than the first. As someone so aptly put it before me, ‘Ain’t it just like God.’ Ain’t it just like God to save the best for last, to give us so much more than we could ever dare ask for, or hope for, or deserve. --  © 1998 Rachel Whelan