I checked the final item off my long to-do list the other day and felt a bit of euphoria when my pen made a straight, black line through the words “answer emails.” It had been a day full of work at my desk (which is really just the dining room table between meals), work in my home (laundry, calling the plumber, scrubbing toilets, preparing dinner), and work for my family (returning library books, picking up groceries, sitting in school pick-up lines). It was such an ordinary day full of the regular cares and work of my everyday life. I would go to bed with a sense of accomplishment and wake up the next morning with a new list to tackle.
It’s all so ordinary—this daily living and working. I can go a whole day, or a whole month of days, with little thought as to what comes next. Not next on my list or calendar but next—after this life. It’s only lately, as I’ve been studying 1 Corinthians where I’m nestled in chapter 15, that my thoughts have leaned towards the real “what’s next?” Weirdly (extraordinarily, if I’m honest), I’ve been thinking a lot about resurrection.
Normally, I don’t think about heaven too much. Or resurrection. Not when life is sailing on with ease like a well-oiled machine. But the hard days, that’s different. Heaven presses closer to my thoughts. The resurrection feels more important. I thought about it a lot when my close friend, Sue, died in April. I read 1 Corinthians 15 many times then because I just couldn’t believe that she was gone. I needed to be sure there was a next for her. When I visit Sue’s grave, I always picture her rising from it. The ground breaks open, God raises her up, gives her a new, imperishable body untouched by cancer. Glory. I can’t wait to see that. One of Sue’s other good friends is buried right behind her, and what a day that will be when Jesus calls them both out of the ground to put on the imperishable, immortal, resurrected versions of themselves.
I think about resurrection when illness and pain dominate my life or that of those I love. Heaven will not include any of the maladies we struggle to assuage and mitigate. The thought cheers me, though it is hard to imagine and feels difficult to grasp as a coming reality. Bodies that don’t hurt? I want to know what that’s like.
Truthfully, the next life—the real one—is hard to properly keep in view. I am so mired down in the everydayness of this life, I give little thought to heaven unless suffering comes close. I told a friend yesterday about that saying I always heard growing up in church: “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re of no earthly good.” Honestly? I don’t know anyone like that. If anything, we lean too hard in the opposite direction. Too earthly minded. Or, as I say to my husband sometimes, “The world is too much with us.” I just want to be less at home here. Sometimes I glimpse it—when I stand at the grave of someone I love and miss or when my body hurts too much to function. But other times? The world is too much with me. I need what Jesus offers me now, today, at this moment. And He faithfully gives is. But what about what He offers later? Next? It has to be more than this.
The apostle Paul makes it clear that if Jesus provides hope “for this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). It’s not less than that, certainly. We can’t persevere to the end of “this life only” without Christ at every step. And yet, walking with Christ is about so much more than this breath, this vapor, this brief span of days that makes up a lifetime. Sometimes, when I’m reading stories from the Old Testament and try to do the math on how long ago the people lived, I get a little panicked. We’re here for such a short time. I’m already half-way through by ordinary standards for life span. Maybe that’s why the resurrection and thoughts of what’s next press in a little more these days. I need hope for more than “this life only.” I need to know and hold fast to the promise of what’s next. The resurrection wasn’t just a big finish to the dark events of Good Friday. God didn’t raise Jesus from the dead just to show off. No, the resurrection of Christ communicates victory over the curse of death and sin. It proves that we really do have forgiveness of sins, that we really are made alive in Christ when He saves us, that we ourselves will not rot in the ground for eternity to come. No, we too will rise.
While we are easily distracted by daily living, our life with Christ extends far beyond the our to-do lists and milestones here on earth. There is so much more! One day, the Lord will raise us up, give us new imperishable bodies, and we’ll go home—really home—with Him. To our real life that lasts forever. Jesus gives us what we need to persevere through “this life only,” but the best comes later. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death,” Paul said (15: 26). And Jesus will do it.
Nothing can stop our coming resurrection. Jesus’s resurrection guarantees that it’s coming for those who are in Him. Maybe we should be a little more “heavenly-minded,” for it will help carry us through the everydayness of “this life only” until we see Him face to face.
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
[…] More Than This Life Only […]