The Back Corner of Heaven

No, there isn’t really a back corner in heaven. But if there was, that’s where I’d want to be. Not because I’m some social introvert (quite the opposite, actually), or because I don’t think there’ll be anything better to do. I’d want to be in the back corner because then I could watch other people getting to know Jesus the way I have—times a million.
Words are funny things. We use them in all sorts of ways and to accomplish all kinds of purposes. But when all is said and done, they’re really not adequate when describing certain things. Even the most talented literary author or speaker fails to deliver an experience with words alone.
In the ends words are tools—messengers that take an audience where the author wants them to go.
Having said that (no pun intended), describing my relationship with Jesus via words is but a small dim window into an exhilarating world. I’m not crazy. I have a relatively well-functioning mind that isn’t diagnosable (or so I think).
Nor am I one of those hell, fire, and brimstone people whose life is plagued with fear and guilt that God will get me if I don’t shape up. Street corners with Jesus signs aren’t my second home, nor are all my conversations—even with the mailman—about Him.
But I do love Him. I am, in fact, radically and completely obsessed with Him and His Gospel. I like to call “ecstasy on purpose”. Learning about or seeing Him work fuels an ecstasy within me that burns until I’ve spoken it to someone else.
It’s compulsive. It flows off my tongue or through my typing fingers like a mountain brook carrying water down its crevassing slopes. That’s the “on purpose” part. Ecstasy about Jesus and for His truth is grand, but not if it remains in your own mind. Mail never does any good if it’s not sent!
My goal is simple: To Know Him and Make Him Known. Since I’ve gripped the fact that knowing Him without hindrance won’t come until heaven, I not-so-patiently wrestle with the waiting.
For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
I’m no Paul, but this passage burns as a reality in my life. I yearn to be with Jesus, knowing that the ecstasy I experience here is but a taste of what’s to come. Yet I know He chooses to keep me here a while longer, so I will serve Him as His vessel—hopefully leaving His fingerprints on every life I touch.
The veil is torn. We now behold His glory in a mirror dimly, but in heaven we will see Him face-to-face. Until then, Lord, transform me into Your image from glory to glory. Reveal Yourself to others as You have to me. Reserve a spot in heaven (as well as on earth) to behold the face of someone seeing You intimately for the first time. Use me to keep that mirror, Daddy. Love You.