Homesick

We are so unmistakably made for God. We are so made to experience Him. The more I live this life the more I realize how little I want to do with it, and I just want to be with God.
I had the privilege tonight of going to see Avatar with my dad, my brother, and Leanna. Wow, what a sweet movie. Just to comment on what everyone is talking about, yes, the graphics were indeed amazing. And I could be a typical, stuffed shirt, sitting in a pew, KJV only Christian right now and write this super long blog about how you shouldn't go see it and we should all band up against it because there is a lot of swearing in it and they worship a false god. But really, throughout the whole movie tonight, the only thing I gained was an intense hunger for God, the real God, Jesus, and I saw just a metaphor of who He is and what we want, what we were made for.
I should start in a garden, because after all, isn't that where it all started? In the movie, Pandora (the alien planet) is very... raw. But it is magical. At night things glow, and there are waterfalls everywhere, and the trees are beautiful. And sometimes I just have to wonder if maybe the original garden was like that. I mean we only know fallen gardens. We only know what Satan has combed through and destroyed as much as possible. We know nothing of God gardens, where fireflies probably glowed a whole lot brighter, and there were no sidewalks or buildings or gas emissions from too many cars. The most beautiful garden on this earth, green and full and filled with flowers and clear water and birds chirping, it but a cursed garden. Jesus is coming back, ya'll! And there will be A NEW EARTH! And it will be restored to it's original glory! I moved to marion almost a year ago now, and never so much has my heart ached for a world that is green and alive with no side walks or chain link fences or stupid traffic with stupid sirens. I have literally been dreaming of spring and flowers and that smell, oh that smell! Can you imagine what it is going to smell like when Jesus comes back!!! Can you imagine how soft the grass is going to feel on your bare feet!? Can you even begin to fathom the crystal sea?! The river of life, flowing pure and clean. The tree which bears all fruits and “will heal the nations!” In the movie, there was a tree that was connected to their deity, and it healed and gave life. And I saw it and thought, “that is but a small imperfect version of the tree of life. That is computer animation thought up by comic book nerds and science junkies. But someday I am going to sit under a tree so much cooler than that. And no rituals will have to be performed. I will just be with God, and will see His face, and sit under that beautiful tree that heals.”
That same tree, in the movie, held the voices of the ancestors. You know that's not the first religion, made of for a movie or a religion made up here on earth, where people believed they could talk to those who had passed on. I of course, as a christian, don't believe you can do that here on this earth (and you certainly shouldn't try! You will get yourself into a big old stank nasty heap of demon trouble doing crap like that!) But as I thought about this concept, it made so much sense. God has set eternity in our hearts. And anyone that has ever, in any way, experienced the pain of losing someone close, knows this is a fact. I've been to my fair share of funerals, and I know every time I have sat in a pew and looked at my Grandpa, my Uncle, my friend, laying lifeless in some elaborate box, I knew that something was terribly wrong. This was not in the original plan. This isn't how it's suppose to go. Death is sin. Sin is death. But inside of us all, we know it doesn't end at that box. Your end in this world is not your end. Jesus came so we could be with Him for eternity, and it doesn't take long staring at one of your family members in one of those damn boxes to figure out that eternity is EXACTLY what you want.
Which leads to my next and final point. We were not made for these bodies. You don't have to be alive for two seconds to realize you have a lot more you would like to do if you were a super hero. In Avatar people make themselves into.... well Avatars. They can link their minds to basically a super human puppet. And that's what all the great movies are about anymore. What we wish we could be. We wish we could look like that. We wish we could move like that. We wish a spider would come bite us and then we would have sweet muscles and amazing strength (webs coming out of your wrist wouldn't hurt.) Or we wish we were superman and could fly and stop a speeding bullet. I think my new life verse is I Corinthians 15:43- It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. Could that be any more true. Our bodies are dishonorable. They crave bad for you food and then they end up fat and lumpy. Or if you do eat good food like veggies, you fart and it smells terrible. And to stay healthy you work out, and you sweat like a pig and can't breathe and it's really awkward and you smell bad (and if you do it right you will hurt for a few days after). To top it all off, in the medical profession you get the unmatched joy of seeing lots of old naked people, and guys, it gets worse. And I will leave it at that. But I wonder what it will be like when I am raised in GLORY and POWER! And I can run as fast as I want and I won't hurt or sweat or have to go to the bathroom a mile in to my run. And I would bet we will fly. And we will be strong. And we will not die.
Guys, as I am sitting here in my downtown marion apartment, I am longing for that day. I love that the bible says the Holy Spirit is a deposit. It's like that feeling, and not even just a feeling, but that faith, that knowing deep inside of you that God is real, that is just a taste. It's just a teaser. Every good thing on this earth is just a teaser. And I am so thankful to serve a real God that really loved us so deeply to send His very own son, to be flesh and bones and die the most horrendous death imaginable, so that everything that our heart longs for will come to be someday. Because of Jesus, someday I will run so fast and not hurt. Someday I will sit in a perfect garden with a smell that is pure ecstasy. Because of Jesus there will be a day when I will not sit in a church staring at a box and feel empty, knowing that in a few minutes the lid will close and I won't see that person anymore. Because of Jesus there will be a day when the curse will be lifted.
If you have been feeling what I have been feeling lately, that this world is so cursed, and so vastly different than what you were meant for, if you have been feeling homesick, take comfort in the fact that it is OK to feel like an alien here. There will be a day..... Jesus is coming back! Jesus is coming back!!!!