Fully BelovedSample

When Tertullian (c. 160–240) and others of the church leaders spoke of God’s patient endurance using the Latin word patientia, they had in mind something more than our just sitting back. They meant enduring, bearing, and not losing heart when suffering. Patience can be wonderfully, energetically active. For it is disposition born of love. God always is giving birth to the new thing to come. We find the unflappable patience possible only for the beloved of God.

For the creation still waits “with eager longing” for “the revealing of the children of God,” as Paul rhapsodized in Romans 8:19 (nrsv).. We carry on in the span between the harrowing effects of the fall and the coming consummation and glory, piecing together words, sighs, tears, and shouts as best we know. But we have what we need to look ahead.

And to know where we are going, we recall where we come from. The long rich story that precedes us and guides our future. The God of Abraham became the God of Jesus Christ and the reigning Lord of the earth. God promised to empower Abraham’s descendants—a small and seemingly insignificant people—to transform the world. . . .

In Jesus especially we see the kingdom breaking in all kinds of ways. We look at him and see the heart of the Creator. For now, in him, Israel’s God was about to establish God’s reign in world-shaking ways. “ ‘The time has come,’ [Jesus] said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’ ”(Mark 1:15). . . .

By the time we get to the Bible’s last book, Revelation, with its sometimes strange imagery, we get great encouragement for our prayers from this big in-between.

Its scenes intensify the possibilities. A prayer arc that begins in Adam’s stuttering, tentative words climaxes. It bends toward an incomparably majestic end.

For in the visions in Revelation, God’s invitation for dialogue with Adam and Eve and their descendants appears in more vivid strokes. Here the work of God in renewing creation in Christ and through Jesus’ followers is amped up and blown wide open. God will finally have his fuller way with his beloved.

Prayer

Lord, throughout the Bible I can see how your people long for you. I ask you to come soon for my sake and for the sake of the world around me. Amen.