There is a song we have sung many times in many places. It is a song that meant a lot to some dear saints I have known. Some of them sang it from the day that it first was sung in our churches:
I’ll Fly Away
Albert E. Brumley
Some glad morning when this life is o’er,
I’ll fly away;
To a home on God’s celestial shore,
I’ll fly away.
When the shadows of this life have grown,
I’ll fly away;
Like a bird from prison bars has flown,
I’ll fly away.
Just a few more weary days and then,
I’ll fly away;
To a land where joys shall never end,
I’ll fly away.
I’ll fly away, O glory, I’ll fly away;
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,
I’ll fly away.
Now, I have to tell you that I have always been fond of this song because of the people with whom I have sung it, and the places where we sang it. But lately, that fondness is more for sentimental feelings than theological reasons. What’s the problem?
Life seemed pretty grim nearly everywhere in 1932, the year that Albert wrote this song. There was a Depression, and it seemed to people that the efforts of humanity were futile. The Modern future that seemed so bright just a couple of decades previously had taken a severe beating from a World War, and then came a world-wide economic disaster. Over the next decade, things would get much worse before getting any better. If there was any hope, it didn’t appear to be on this planet, but in the next world.
Consequently, this world became something to endure: life, shadows, prison bars, and weary days. Even in pain or poverty, is this how God means for us to see this world? Are these the feelings that we are meant to experience in these difficult days and circumstances? Is our hope merely for the final coming of Jesus? I think not.
Our future is not when this life is over, it is not when the shadows have lengthened into those of the Psalmist’s valley, it is not after a few more weary days. Our future is our next instant, our next moment in time. The future is not however many days, months or years from now that God takes us to heaven, but the end of this paragraph.
Our hope is that the power of God working through his people can make the world a little better today so that tomorrow starts off from a better place. Such a place will require constant tending, but hope tells us that there is a way for things to be better. It may not be better everywhere, but with our hope and action, and God’s approval and providence, it is possible for it to be better here, soon.
Yes, the kingdom of God has come, and the church is the vanguard of it. But it is not yet completely here. We are called to be co-workers in that kingdom, not spectators. It is our job to bring a little more of the kingdom into this world day by day. We will never complete the job in our lifetime, but surely redeeming humanity and this planet is something that was intended to be our lives’ work, and not a mess to be left entirely for God to clean up in the “end times.”
Yes, I believe that God has a home on his celestial shore, but I also believe that he has one in Hollis, Oklahoma. It may not seem like heaven all of the time to all of its inhabitants, but our job is to make it the closest approximation that we can with the time and the resources that God has given to us. Heaven won’t have prison bars, but neither does this; we have the free will to choose ways to be a people who love and nurture needy children for the glory of God. He has given us freedom to work, and worship, and yes, even to play so as to delight in that freedom and glorify him with it. Yes, joys will never end in heaven, but we ought to find plenty of them here. We should be doing a little more than taste-testing the delights of paradise.
O, I’ll fly away one of these days, but that means that I had better learn how to spread my wings now. I don’t want to wait until I’m shoved out of the nest to see what they feel like.
Grace and peace,
Ron
