18.03 | That Day & This Day
1 Corinthians 7
‘This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.’
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
A tricky moment in any job is that spell between handing in your notice, and actually leaving. You’ve still got all the tasks and relationships and policies and processes, but you know that your time there is really short. It’s easy to mentally check out, letting your mind wander onto the next stage. To care a bit less. To be present in body, but increasingly not in your focus. Your body is in the room, but your heart is already halfway out the door.
Maybe you've been there. Maybe you’re there now. In that place, your ways of being and thinking in this moment are utterly shaped by the moments to come.
Because that day shapes this day.
Paul touches today on some of those scenarios in our life that goes into deep places of longing and hope.
Marriage.
Singleness.
Slavery.
Paul’s question is how we inhabit these places and these moments in light of the moments to come.
How does that Day shape this day?
This is the daily tension for the Christian.
Don’t hear Paul wrong. This isn’t flippancy with our hopes or with our hearts. The scenarios that he is speaking into go deep. None of them are trivial. They are matters of great weight and, often, very real longings.
And yet, Paul’s words also offer us a way through our immediate limitations. He is pointing into a way of being that it gives us direction and poise and hope even in these very moments of longings unfulfilled, for in truth all longings will be partially unfulfilled until the Day to come. Paul offers us the idea that these temporary places can only be lived fully when we live in light of that place.
Your singleness, Paul says, whether it is filled with gratitude and freedom or whether it is filled with longing and loneliness, is shaped by the coming age. For in that age, all of your intimacies and all the deepest longings of your heart will be filled to overflowing as you bask your soul in the love of the Father.
Your marriage, Paul says, in all its maddening mixture of beauty and brokenness, intimacy and irritations, can only find its true meaning when you recognise that your spouse can never fulfil your deepest longings, but the very best way a marriage can ever thrive is when you stand side by side, in great love and service of each other, pointing your shared lives in the direction of the God who alone has your eternal fidelity.
Your slavery, Paul says—that wounded reality that was so ingrained in the societal makeup of the First Century world—does not change, inhibit, or taint the truer reality of your endless freedom in the Father. Your identity is not set in your status, but rather, with full hearts and bursting joy, set your heart and hopes and longings primarily upon the freedom that is yours into endless days.
Because these things, however beautiful or broken they may be for us, are not your destiny.
Rather, in this moment, we remind our fearful and aching hearts of the only place where fullness can be found.
Not the circumstantial liberties of singleness. Not the most romantic moments of intimacy. Not even the greatest freedoms of soul and society and circumstance that you can imagine within this age.
But the great and glorious love that will be ours in eternity unending.
Because that Day gives shape to this day.
And there, and only there, will every liberty and longing be truly fulfilled.
Reflect:
Consider your longings. Feel them. Hold them before the Father. Hold your longings for a fuller marriage, an intimate relationship of love and trust, a change from the limitations of your circumstances. Sit with the Father with these very feelings. He deeply treasures the desires of your heart.
And, then, remind your soul that every earthly desire is simply a manifestation of the longings that can only be filled by eternal things. Every thing you ultimately desire is ultimately found in Him.
How do you walk differently with this in mind?
Pray:
Loving Father,
This goes right into my soul and deep into my longings;
I can’t quickly change them,
And I’m not going to sit here and deny them.
But one thing I do:
In this very place, I name again,
To my longing soul,
That I have all things and abound,
Because I have you.
My future is not characterised by lack,
But by endless fullness,
Because my future,
Is You.
Tend my heart, Lord,
Within your kindness.
I trust you again with my longings in this day,
Asking too that you grow in me
A growing and robust joy,
In the knowledge of that Day to come.
In the Name of Jesus,
My Lord, my friend, my fullness, and my Eternity
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Deuteronomy 3:1-4:43 | Psalm 36