Longing and Hope

(In response to chapter 1 "Longing and Hope" from Engaging God's World by Plantinga Jr.)
Plantinga states that "Not everybody can report times of wanting to 'break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy,' but many do know what it feels like to yearn." This further validates the argument that we are not made for this world. Everyone knows how to yearn, and everyone yearns for something. The possibility that we might not have to yearn anymore, that we may experience stabs of hopeless joy that bring us to tears is incredible. We are not made for this world, our bodies yearn for better world.

"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singin' about.... I like to think they were singin' about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away... and for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free."
--Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding-- from the movie Shawshank Redemption
This quotation is said in response to a man broking into a room and played a record on the loudspeakers of a maximum security prison. This was the first time in many years that these men had heard any music, many of them serving life for some crime or another. But I feel that this quotation would correctly describe our response if we were given a glimpse of Heaven on earth. It is almost as if we are in a maximum security prison here on earth, living out our life sentences yearning for freedom: a freedom that can only be experienced on the outside. Any glimpse of this freedom this wonderful experience of joy here on earth can only elicit the type of emotions that will be magnified when we experience the full reward in heaven.

St. Augustine says, "You have made us for yourself [God], and our heart is restless until it rests in you." We cannot not experience the extent of fulfilled joy until our hearts our at rest in the arms of our father. Until then we are left to yearn for the kingdom of God in heaven. We must, however, be careful not to "only hope for ourselves." Rather, we should "keep our head up so that we can look out toward the future of others."

This chapter has further built my anticipation of heaven and what it will be to experience perfect joy. It has also laid the groundwork on how to prepare myself for my journey in this life with the goal of reaching the afterlife.