To think there was once a time where a moment seemed to last an eternity, you grow up and time flies by you. It all but makes sense why the fantasy of Neverland came to exist. No wonder Peter Pan didn't want to leave Neverland: it was a place you never had to grow up and see the decay of time upon ones mind or body.
I drop the ball probably on average with most people. But I would say that the occasions upon which I drop the ball most is when my life is about to welcome another child into this world. 2017, 2020, and 2021 have been very significant years to me with regard to having completely lost track of time.
Regarding 2020, most people can reckon with me that they lost track of life due to COVID. But that particular year, COVID was a backburner issue as we had taken a new job, had our second child, moved back to our home state, and I endured a promotion by default of losing my boss. It was an interesting year. But all of it began preparing me for what being a father of multiple children would actually look like. 2021 brought me my third child, my first son.
Having three children has been the hardest things I have ever done. It has broken me time and time again. Sometimes I have taking the beating well. Many other times I have wussed out and ran away from the transformative invitation Jesus has offered. But He has continued to walk with me in patient love, all the while I seem to be scratching or clawing my way back to Neverland. I don't want to grow up. I don't want to die. I don't like the things that this world has to offer for my sake or my children's.
And yet here I am. Wondering what this life would look like if I could just peer a bit longer into the eternal mind of God --- what does it feel like to wonder without time? What does it feel like to create when time isn't beckoning at you? What does love feel like outside of the parameters of death? Is there only one reason that Captain Hook just so happens to haunt the beauty of Neverland? And that reason is to tempt Peter Pan into leaving so that he can't stay to enjoy the wonders of timeless life?
In the final chapters of the collection of God's Word, the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22 do more than wonder at the future of our existence. They describe a promise that one day our earth will be remade into a new earth, along with a new heaven, where we will coexist together in the light of God. It is a Garden of Eden recreated, unbound by time and unaffected by sin. It sounds better than what we have here and yet, don't we taste glimpses? It even sounds better than the small little Neverland, where there is a deceiver tempting us to leave the promises of God.
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