One of my favorite scenes of any movie was in AI, when the little robot kid that wanted to be a real boy traveled to the bottom of the flooded earth to find the blue fairy to make him human. A Ferris wheel falls over beneath the sea and traps him for an eternity staring and longing for the magic of that blue fairy, whom he could only stare at and wish to.
We were always meant to be eternal beings. We were made to love eternally and think eternally. Most importantly, for us, we were made to live eternally. Even if that means Heaven awaits, I don't think that Heaven is the only eternity we were meant to experience. We aren't waiting for things to happen, to get old and die in our sleep and finally get what we have always longed for...to be a complete and whole child of God. I think that God desires that we live with eternity in mind right now. To make choices and thoughts based on eternal love and eternal consequences.
That can be a tall task when we can't get past the thing that keeps us broken, right here, right now. Something holds us down. Something keeps us longing for something we can never have... something phony and fake. Regret. Hate. Jealousy. Anger. Lust. Greed. Could be the time you let that friend drive when you shouldn't have and lost him forever. Could be that rage that eats you when you think of your dad. Could be having to watch the one you love, loving another person. Could be a failed marriage. Could be rejection. Could be the insecurity that comes with being abandoned again and again. And maybe we just can't get it right. For me it is my missed opportunities to save one of the very few people who meant something to me at a time that nothing at all mattered.
Jesus didn't die so that we could live with regret. He didn't give us the tools to build a tent and pitch it in misery. He came so that we could have life and have it to the fullest. That means He knew full well that we would still sin and mess up and miss things, yet He died anyway at our hands. So we could be free.
Imagine the joy of a slave just freed. Imagine the happiness of a leper just healed. Imagine the hysterical glee of a prisoner pardoned for no reason at all, just because. This is what He came to do. However, many of those slaves stayed put in slavery. Those lepers got sick and died again. That prisoner may have gone right out and offended again. This is disappointment. That harsh empty feeling in your stomach when it drops. When all of your excitement is stripped away, all of that joy turned to sorrow. Get disappointed too much and you are liable to stop getting excited about anything. We will start living life waiting for the worst to happen. Or just disengage.
I think that is where Will really got mixed up. He got hurt so much. He left it all out on the table and it got trampled right before his eyes. He wanted something better and longed for something that wasn't happening. So he gave up, trapped at the bottom of the sea waiting on that blue fairy. I think what he missed was the amount of love that circled around him. The number of people that would give their own heads for his. I think he forgot what eternity looked like lived right here, right now. I am so happy that he knows it now. That he is dancing and shouting and laughing. He has what he had always longed for. He is whole.
That thought helps me remember to get back up and look forward. My neck hurts from looking behind for so long. If God wanted us to keep looking back, we would have eyes in the backs of our heads. Lott's wife was turned to salt for looking back at the destruction of evil. We can freeze in place too.
Sing.
Migrate.
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