Do you ever feel like a hamster sprinting in a wheel, laboring feverishly but getting nowhere?
Day after day it’s the same ol’ rat race. We get up, get ready, go to work, get some supper, then go to bed. Then we do it again. And again. For days. For weeks. For years. No wonder we battle discouragement and depression. Our monotonous schedules signal to us that there is no point in life. We collapse into our beds at night simply content to have kept breathing for one more day.
There’s got to be more to life than that. Occasionally, as we lie in bed enjoying the brief reprieve that separates one hectic daily grind from another, we muse, “If I could just understand what it’s all about!”
Fortunately, we can. We will not, however, find the answer in our daily schedules or even a long-awaited vacation. We will find the answer rather in a place we cannot physically go—a place where God Himself reigns on the throne.
As we begin Revelation 4, John hears a voice offering an invitation into God’s throne room. What he saw there overwhelmed his powers of description.
On the throne sat one whose appearance John could only compare to precious stones. Surrounding the throne, a brilliant rainbow cast its reflection on a sea of glass while a thunderous crescendo of voices and lightning shook the heavens. Indescribable creatures, each with six wings and countless eyes, did nothing but praise the One on the throne, declaring “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” As each refrain of their eternal song came to an end, twenty-four elders rose from their seats encircling the throne only to fall on their faces in agreement: “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”
When we dream of Heaven, we envision golden streets, sprawling mansions, and relationships devoid of tears. However, in the presence of God, no one cares about all that stuff. They are transfixed on the One on the throne. The One who deserves eternal praise.
If God is what it’s all about up there, then maybe He’s all it’s about here, too.
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