Most people live with a sense that things could be better. People study, work hard, devote themselves to various endeavours and give up years of their life for something they are chasing.
I recall Kevin Johnson’s 1973 pop song, Rock and Roll I Gave You All The Best Years of My Life. He described himself as a young guitarist chasing fame, but never making it, until he finally sold his old guitar as his girlfriend ‘tried to help me understand, I’d never be a star’.
Many people have given up years of their life, maybe the best years of their life, pursuing the better thing yet to come. How many would-be athletes have given up years of their life to intensive training, without ever making it? Or students devoted their life and time to study, without getting the marks they wanted?
Some people go from job to job, or relationship to relationship, or church to church, looking for that better thing they seek.
What is the ultimate outcome of your life and situation? What are you still looking for?
Many years ago, in Australia, there was a tourism promotion showing a man sitting in a beautiful, remote location, with the slogan, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” How tragic. If the best you can hope for is relaxing in some exotic location, then your life has a very limited scope.
Let me stir your heart with two key thoughts. Firstly, you are meant for much more wonderful things than you currently have, and that you currently wish for. God has plans for you that are more wonderful than you have imagined.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has your heart imagined, the things God has already prepared for those who love him.” 1Corinthians 2:9
God does have Better Things for you. Those Better Things are far beyond the best things you might imagine. They are also very wide in dimension. The guitarist chasing fame and the holiday maker taking their ease are both looking for what is best for self. God reveals that our best involves living for God and others, not for self-fulfilment or self-satisfaction.
“Jesus declared, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, Love your neighbour as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39
“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35
God plans for you to have fruitfulness, where you achieve things for God’s Kingdom, things God will celebrate forever.
“You have not chosen Me but I chose and ordained you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” John 15:16
While an earthly entertainer can have the temporary applause of a crowd, you have the right to enter God’s throne room and bring praise to the Living God of all eternity.
“Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” Hebrews 13:15
“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful to him, and bless his name.” Psalm 100:4
While people enjoy a glorious view, gentle breeze and warm sun, you can enjoy the radiance of God’s glory, shining within you.
“For God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2Corinthians 4:6
While people look for the warmth and sweetness of human affection, you can enjoy God’s most wonderful love and affection poured into your heart.
“The love of God is splashed about in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us” Romans 5:5
So the Better that is Yet To Come in your life is far beyond the sweetest things of earth. It is rich in spiritual depth and wonder, far more powerful and healing than the nicest things our natural life offers.
And wonderfully, God continues to unfold those Better Things Yet To Come by the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We don’t have to stay the same, with the same limitations, fears, agitations, insecurities, low expectations, bad track record, broken hopes and so on. God ‘saves’ us, so He rescues and heals, restores and transforms us, and that work is an ongoing work, transforming us from one degree of glory to a better one.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory (with intensifying glory).” 2Corinthians 3:17,18
You have not missed your best years. You have not seen the best your life offers. You are not now stuck where ever you feel you’ve been closed in. God is ready to open to you the fulness of life, and to go beyond your wildest and sweetest hopes for this life.
“The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I am come so they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” John 10:10
Be encouraged. Open yourself to God. Put your faith in Christ and allow God to work His wondrous works in you. And as you yield to Him, expect the Better Yet To Come.
Leave a Reply