II.

Eternal Now

For me, there are two ways to define the eternal, and I’ve spent most of my life half-heartedly attempting and desperately failing at the latter; the first is we are born to live this life as a test, and after we die we live eternally in heaven, our placement tempered by the level of faith* we incorporated into our lives while on earth. The second is Heaven and hell are meant to be experienced in the present and the afterlife. By living in the eternal now (as much as possible while existing in the temporal) one lives divinely, John 14:12 type of stuff.

Over the past few years a different or varied, at least, understanding of the eternal has crept in. I hadn't even noticed until the past year or so. The way I have been living lately is heavily influenced by the notion that eternal is not as much a place, but a way of living. The more I get to know the Father, the more I want to know, and each time I go through the difficult process of removing a boundary I have set between us–most often one I didn’t even know was there–I want us to find and remove another. I think this is a low level of living eternally. Ultimately, it’s getting to a place where one is solely dependent upon the Father for everything and living a truly holy life. I don't know anyone living there, and I'm certainly miles away. At times I have no problem going back and living for myself. I had a week recently where I shut down, blocked Him out almost completely, but He was there waiting for me the next week and we picked right back up. Areas of shame, fear, pride, anything pulling us away from walking further into that relationship are always the starting point. It's a constant process that hurts and heals and hacks away at the weeds I've grown.

…more to come

*How much one has separated himself from the secular world and kept the tenets of the Bible close at heart