Not Yet!

My father recently had an appointment with a hematologist. Because of the high census of patients, the physician had returned from retirement to help out at the clinic. In an attempt to make conversation, the doctor asked Morgan if he had lived his whole life in Rochester. Dad responded, "Not yet."

Not quite.

When I was younger my parents frequently "went visiting." This sounds like a wonderful (probably quaint) way for a family to spend a Sunday afternoon. However, in a region where my relatives represented a significant voting block, it sometimes seemed like there was no end to our trips. Until I developed sufficient adolescent sullenness to resist their entreaties, it was expected that I would accompany my parents on their "drives." Like backseat passengers throughout the world, I often asked, "Are we there yet?" Invariably, the answer was, "Not quite, just a little bit more."

Just a while longer.

The Bible is filled with the message of "not yet- just a while longer."

The disciples thought the Kingdom had come and maybe it had - in a marvelous, confusing way the religious people of the day never expected. Still, when they were left on that hilltop east of Jerusalem looking up into the clouds, the angels seemed to say, "It is still coming. It is still a ways off."

In his letter to the Romans, Paul states, "... we hope for something we have not yet seen, and we patiently wait for it." (Romans 8:25, CEV) In a chapter otherwise filled with great confidence, even Paul realizes there is still something more to come. We haven't experienced everything yet. There is still something just over the horizon we have yet to see.

Paul applied this "not yet" message to his personal spiritual experience. He wrote, "I have not yet reached my goal... But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize." (Philippians 3:12, CEV) I am His, but I still have a ways to go.

Of course the same thing can be said for each one of us. In his first letter the Apostle John wrote, "... we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2, ESV)

I imagine the disciples occasionally grew tired of waiting for the "soon return" of their Savior. It would have been natural for Paul to wonder if God didn't move that prize from time to time. All of us live with that "almost-but-not-quite" as part of our spiritual experience.

Of course, in the end, this is what faith really comes down to - living in that land where we can see the cookie jar, but it remains just out of reach.