Living Homeward in the Company of Other Pilgrims

Living among other humans gives me an idea of the complex—though consistent—personhood of God. According to Herman Bavinck, a Dutch reformed theologian, “The image of God is much too rich for it to be fully realized in a single human being, however richly gifted that human being may be. It can only be somewhat unfolded in its depth and riches in a humanity counting billions of members” (In the Beginning: Foundations of Creation Theology).

Even within the small sampling, I know out of those billions of members, I am discovering trait after trait of the Father in the children who take after Him and who together “are all part of [the] building in which God himself lives by his spirit” (Eph. 2:22 PHILLIPS). On my clearest days, I see how He fits us together; I see how He designed the Homeward road to be one we cannot walk alone.

When we are finally gathered Home, we will fill a house with many rooms, Christ says (John 14:1–4). I don’t know exactly what this will look like, but I imagine the warmth of a city where people can run upstairs and pop in at an open door to offer another a bite of a fresh concoction or the newly penned verse of a song. I think of what it might be like to sit at a table across from a person I knew on the old earth and hear what befell them in the intervening time.

And then I try to contemplate what it will be like on that day when the people of God are healed of all trauma and hurt when they no longer have to do the remedial or maintenance work of mortals, and when—free of relational scars, threats of harm, and every kind of burden—they can take up all their skill, passion, enthusiasm and artistry in the full work of delighting in their Creator and the world He has restored. But I don’t get very far. The thoughts turn to questions as my imagination shorts out.

What will it be like to live among people who love God wholeheartedly, have learned to look to the interests of others, and now have unlimited supplies, empathy, and time at their disposal to continue in these things? What will they do, these “members of one another,” when they have not thirty or forty years but eternity?

How will we dwell among such beauty and not be blinded by awe all our days?