Nearly every summer, my parents loaded my siblings and me into the family car and embarked on that common vacation ritual known as “the road trip.” Years later, as the father to my own young children, I have a sense of what my parents experienced on those trips. I now often hear the question from the backseat that must have rung in my father’s ears as he drove us down the highway: “Are we there yet?” The answer, of course, is found in the asking. Yet my wife or I still reply from the front seat, “No, we are not there yet—we’ll let you know when we are.”

Unlike children’s recurring query on family road trips, the same question is one that every child of God ought to ask regarding his or her Christian life, a life that the Bible depicts as progressing toward a definite goal. For example, Scripture compares the Christian life to a race we must finish (1 Cor. 9:24; see 2 Tim. 4:7) and to a pilgrimage we must make toward the “city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). Christians are called to take up their cross and “follow” after Christ (Matt. 16:24; Mark 8:34), to “walk” in fellowship with Him (Eph. 2:10), and to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14).

In light of that biblical guidance, the question of whether Christians living today are “there yet” seems easy to answer. We are still running, walking, pressing on, and, as we do so, we face all manner of trials and sinful inclinations. We see, and to some extent experience, decay—both physical and moral—in this fallen world. Energy yields to enervation in our bodies as the years roll by. One imagines that if these stark realities could speak, they would shout back at our inquiring hearts, “No, you are not there yet—you’ll know when you are.” And yet, the Bible tells us that there is more to the story. . . .

. . . continue reading at TableTalk. 

Read More On Christian Life, Eschatology, perseverance

Share This