Eternity is something difficult for us to understand. This is because humans are destined to end, humanly and physically speaking. We get hurt, feel pain, are fragile, and mortal.
But when we stop to think about this, we may ask ourselves, ‘But what will God do there?’ After all, a perfect place, with His full presence, without any evil, what will He do?
Simple, what He has always done and continues to do in Eternity: to love.
From the beginning
“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.“
Genesis 1:3,4
The world has never been the result of an eternity filled with boredom and emptiness. God was not idle, just thinking of writing a simple story to fill His time.
He is complete; everything needs Him to exist, it has never been the other way around. But He loved!
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit already coexisted in perfection, and the creation of such a vast universe was always so that this perfect and complete love could overflow.
The world is the full expression of God’s great love and, as it is so sovereign and complete, He invites us to also discover this lifestyle. God’s love is not a feeling, it is not like an emotion, but it transforms us completely, it concerns a way of acting, thinking and simply loving.
The answer is love
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13
Through so much giving that we receive from God, with everything poured upon us, when we truly encounter this love, we have no other reaction but to love. The act of loving is a natural response.
Do not think of eternity as a tedious and empty place, as if we were to have a lot of time and little task, considering the human rush of work, studies, and a thousand other tasks. See it as a place that we receive through love and for love.
This love is Christ.
Don’t run in circles
“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
Colossians 3:14
Just as what God did in eternity was to love, you have been set apart and chosen for this, and are daily invited to put this love, so sweet and gracious, into action.
The world was created through an overflow of this love and needs to be maintained in the same way, with the goal of reaching the place where this love was born, eternity with the Creator of all.
We should not focus our attention on what eternity will be like, trying to guess what we will do and how things will be around. Focus on transforming the environment around you now. Also, overflow with this love onto other people, inviting them to the same action toward others.
Focusing too much on tomorrow often does not lead us to it, but deprives us of living in the present and stagnates us in a place where we will neither live nor build for the future.
The focus needs to be on acting and loving today, with the goal always on eternity, however it may be.
