“Living in eternity is about loving God as He loves us. This requires living with complete and total trust in God, no matter what our circumstances, no longer remaining hostage to thoughts of anxiety, fear, and despair. We have already been rescued…”
On 4 July 1976, the Israeli government sent a force of one hundred commandos on a counter-terrorism mission. They flew over 2500 miles to the Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. Only a week before, Palestinian terrorists had hijacked an Air France flight scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to Paris with nearly one hundred Israelis on board. The terrorist’s objective was the release of Palestinian militants imprisoned in Israel. They had the full support of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin who provided 100 Ugandan soldiers to protect the terrorists at the airport.
The ensuing battle lasted only ninety minutes. All but three of the Israeli and Air France flight crew members were rescued. It is considered one of the greatest rescue missions ever executed.
But if we were to combine the outcome of this mission with the all the other rescue events in history, they would not begin to compare with the single greatest rescue mission of all time.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
– John 3:16
These words from our Lord are a summation of the entire Gospel. They convey God’s incalculable love for each of us, individually. He gave His only begotten Son that we might live.
God knows you by name, He knows everything about you, and He has an eternal plan for your life. But I wonder how many of us have fully understood this. Does this reality impact our daily lives? Do we recognize the significance of Christ’s rescue mission?
Some might be inclined to say that we are not really in need of rescue, and we certainly are not hostages. I wonder…
Aside from our fallen condition, and largely as a consequence of it, I wonder how many of us have been held hostage, at times, by our own thoughts. Have we ever experienced crimpling anxiety, fear, or even despair over some of the more challenging events of our lives?
What is God’s response to all this? It is the gift of His Son, the reality of His Real Presence.
If we have experienced the anxiety of financial setbacks, poor health, the loss of a job, or a failed relationship, we hear: “Have no anxiety” (Philippians 4:6).
If we have ever held our breath in fear over concern for or even lost a loved one, a parent, a spouse or our own child, we hear: “Do not fear I am with you” (Isaiah 14:10).
And if we have ever wondered, in desperation, about the meaning of our lives, we hear: “All things work for good” (Romans 8:28).
But is hearing, is living these promises our everyday experience? Do we dwell in an abiding peace in the sure knowledge that our Creator, our God, our Father has already set us free.
On 1 March, the Preacher of the Papal household, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, offered insight on why so many today have lost a sense of intimacy and trust we should all have toward God our Father. “Theology, above all in the West, the Cardinal said, has increasingly moved away from the power of the Spirit and relies now merely on human wisdom.”
Because of our over emphasis on intellectualizing about God, we have come to view Him more as a projection of our own making, a concept to be analyzed but not as someone with whom we can be in relationship, someone in whom we can trust.
God promises us peace in this life, but in order to experience it, we must enter into a loving relationship with God as Father, not as concept, but as a loving person. True and abiding Peace comes from being in a loving relationship.
If we have never fully experienced this peace, a peace the world cannot give, why is this? We may need to look again at the second part of this verse from the Gospel of John, “Everyone who believes in him…”
All God asks for His promise of unconditional love is our loving response of faith and trust in His love. That is our loving response – to believe. And when we have allowed this loving response to be fully perfected in us, then all our anxiety, all our worry, and all our fear will be removed. How can this be? Scripture tells us: “Perfect love drives out all fear” (1 John 4:18).
This trust must become as common to us as breathing. We must learn to respond to every situation in our life with singularly loving trust, whether we perceive our immediate circumstances as good or bad. Try continually uttering this simple prayer: Jesus I trust in You.
But one other obstacle still holds us back. It is our misunderstanding of the term eternal life.
Jesus says, “Everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
For many, this gift of eternal life is a gift deferred until the next life. But in this verse, and in five other verses in the Gospel of John, Jesus reiterates that those who believe already have eternal life. It is not deferred. We are all living in eternity now. And those who live with the greatest amount of trust in God’s promise of love are experiencing the greatest degree of eternal life, even now in this life. We cannot measure God’s love by our view of our circumstances in time.
Living in eternity is about loving God as He loves us. This requires living with complete and total trust in God, no matter what our circumstances, no longer remaining hostage to thoughts of anxiety, fear, and despair. We have already been rescued, and everything in our life is part of God’s eternal plan for us. If we truly give everything over to Him, our families, our health, our finances, every relationship, the good and the bad events of our lives, then we will live without anxiety, without fear, and without concern about which parts of our life were or are either good or bad. They are all simply part of His plan. He gave us His only Son as a gift; will He now hold back anything we need for eternal life?
If we only live in the temporal and temporary order of this passing world, things do not change much. There was only one Israeli commando killed in that raid on Entebbe, his name was Yonatan Netanyahu. He was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister of Israel.We must learn to live in eternity with trust in God’s providential care. And to the extent that we do this, our lives, even now, will be full and abundant. God Loves us, we return that love through our continued trust in His Divine Providence, and choosing to live with Him in eternity.
God Bless
Article Copyright © Deacon Mark Danis
Image credit: “The Crucifixion” (detail) | Léon Bonnat, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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