I read something so refreshing in a book I’ve found, Keep a Quiet Heart–the collection of entries by missionary Elisabeth Elliot. She wonders why God doesn’t always spare us from hardship here on earth as she examines how Paul’s ship runs aground on an island even while an angel stands beside him to guard him in Acts 27.
She writes, “Heaven is not here. It’s there. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for.”
I love how she reflects upon a situation that makes the world “a little less appealing” and invites us to think about another destination, not this one.
And one day soon, there, we will find what we’ve been longing for. I think about some difficult thing–whatever it may be today–and I consider how I’ll say, “Well, that just made life here a little less appealing!” I’ll interpret that thing as a luring of God, a loving wooing away from here and towards Him.