Otherworldly

Revelations 6:8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him.

I have mentioned previously that I do not love the book of Revelations.  It reads to me like a hallucination and makes about as much sense.  To be sure there are meaningful passages that have pertinence to my life, but most of it is in metaphoric or visionary language that I cannot begin to understand.  So, I will address the prophecies of Revelations in just this one entry.  I am not able to explain it however.  I will just address what it means to me.

In Revelations, I am as a two dimensional stick figure, knowing only up/down and left/right, while trying to comprehend depth and time.  It is just beyond what I can grasp.  The futility my stick figure feels is the same futility I feel in trying to understand John’s prophecies of the future.  John was given this vision of future events, which he could not possibly understand and tasked with the job of writing it down for us.  So it is no surprise that the future reads as otherworldly.

This perceived futility of the otherworldly should not however discourage me from trying to develop my spiritual senses.  A friend recently asked me if I believed in the spirit world. How could I not? We see God as existing supernaturally, in a place other than the natural world which we can see, and touch.  He of course, lives beyond his creation, but He also permeates it.  Though He may dwell in a dimension that we do not immediately perceive with our five senses, the bible, from beginning to end insists that we have a spiritual sense with which we can, in a very real way, feel and know God.

We all have this flesh life with which we are familiar, but we also have a spirit life gifted with otherworldly senses, which we can develop just as we do our five natural senses.  We have all felt this spiritual sense tugging us heavenward when looking at the stars or staring at the ocean.  We have all known the wonder in contemplating the vastness of time and space, sensing that something more is out there.

It may not be natural to our flesh, but it is inherent in our spiritual existence to long for God.  We were made to walk in the garden, hand in hand with him and though it may have been suppressed by long years of following self, we all have the capacity to know God.  He has gone to great lengths to reveal himself in a tangible relationship in which we can know him as real as anything in this world. I cannot imagine a higher purpose in this life than to develop this spiritual sensitivity to God.

I put purposeful effort into developing this otherworldly sense.  I work hard at it because I desperately want and need God. I was made for God and I am incomplete without him.  All of my frustrated desires and unmet needs are completed in him.  When I feel hollow and am hungry for a food that does not exist, it is only in God that I find my true satisfaction and fulfillment.

So, I meet God with my cup of coffee in my recliner at 5AM, in the quietness of the day, to talk and listen to him.  I meet him in the silver moonlight of a solitary late night run on a country bike trail. When I work at it, I learn to see him, feel him and know him everywhere.  In developing my otherworldly sense, I come to know God in a very real and tangible way here in this world.  Through practice, the otherworldly can become real in the here and now.  So, though I may find Revelations tedious and confusing, if it inspires the otherworldliness in me, it is not time wasted.