A Fish Out of Water

Sometimes I feel like a fish. It is not that I am a great swimmer; my only real aquatic adventures were bobbing around in the San Diego surf. My sense of being a fish comes more from the experience of living within my own familiar environment, as a fish is within its watery world. It is aware of nothing unusual in a briny medium; gathering from the depths all its necessities. It is normal an natural; home.

This world, this culture, this environment of cars and houses and streets and cities and people is where I live. It is my ecosystem.

In Christ Jesus, there is another realm; light and warm and free. But, like a fish out of water, I think I cannot live there yet. Like the fish, I fear that I would die, lacking the necessary breathing apparatus. Leaping above the surface, though, into its glorious freedom, I catch tantalizing snapshot glimpses of this wondrous kingdom. I hold my breath and see that which is unseeable; know that which is unknowable; experience that which is beyond experience-mysteries revealed.

Though it often seems like this someday of wings, feathers and flight may be a long way off, these brief glimpses reveal a more-than-real reality. I discover that, in truth, I already live in the bright, airy world of eternity-in Christ Jesus my Lord. And you all, dear ones in Him with me, are a window into that other realm.

  07/02/07