When we speak of an inveterate longing which often designates our entire being, and of the divine curve balls which often keep us at bay in our sense of daily mooring, we are speaking of the unction which the living God opts to confer upon us, irrespective of our own mental faculties' conscious wishes (or so we think).
In other words, the intangible thirsting which Jehovah, the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows (Jas. 1:17) imparts to us is not a sort of newfangled theological ADHD, wherein all the accouterments of our life are so up for grabs that we can never make sense of anything, from moment to moment. This waywardness which afflicts us is not a loose-knit pummeling of upper cuts which leave us tipsy, or too woozy to cogitate properly.
Rather, the longing which afflicts a lover of God is a muse which Jehovah imparts to us, the likes of which is not simply capricious, or so precipitously whimsical that we are left in the dust by its je-ne-sais-quoi governance. What the lover of our souls imparts and commends unto us is a Hebrews 4:12-13 modality of zany grace: a grace which while dispensed from Heaven's bounties, ultimately sifts into the thoughts and intents of our heart in such a way which: A. reflects the commendation of the Holy of Holies, and B. provides for the Christian in question a unique imprimatur to live out his or her life with zest, vitality, and loving unction, all the while participating in the mystery of godliness. To flesh it out for you in basic terminology, God wants to ratify our search for significance, beauty, meaning, and uniqueness. Every facet of His creative handiwork is a display of his manifest elegance as the Creator God, who fashioned the creatures of the earth, air, and sea with such distinction and such subtlety that many humans spend their entire "earthbound" existence marveling exclusively at the wonders of nature, never paying heed or homage to the Three Kings of Eternity who set our schema in motion, in a Divine outworking which from first to last, is by faith and from faith.
What is "hidden manna"? Of what will the new heavens and the new earth (Isa. 65:17; Rev. 21) consist? What aspects, or elements, of the human variety will be retained, once the New Jerusalem begins in earnest? Will Dexter Gordon's music be accessible for me to listen to and study, even if he himself isn't there? Do Caleb Carr's debonair novels which realistically portray a very sordid 19th century New York City still retain their "this worldly" distinction on the new earth, or do we, the Elect, ultimately forget all the former things, with an amnesia so acute that one would be hard-pressed to believe anything but that the original earth was so tarnished with incidental minutiae, and nothing more, that God had to burn everything in toto, hook, line and sinker, dropping it all into the refuse heap of Gehenna? How does this hypothetical square with the reality of the one-to-one correspondence between the body that dies, and the body that rises? If we are to store up treasures in heaven now, where thief and moth do not destroy, then wouldn't that suggest that our earth-bound activities have some resonance with the Godhead, assuming they know a bit about the human lot, our interests, our hearts' intents, and our general receptivity and response to the call of denotative love?
Is God so dense that it doesn't cross His eternal mind that the redemptive call of the proto-evangel was a call to an enhanced heavens and earth? And seeing that you don't even have to believe in God to answer that question accurately, does it not stand to reason that, since God called His creation "good", and "very good" during the inception of the history of our world, perhaps the evolution of human creativity and artistic accomplishment mean a bit more to the living God than we are usually willing to give Him credit? What if God, (that would be Jehovah God, (1st Person of the Trinity), the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (2nd Person of the Trinity (see Micah 5:2, and Rev 5:5), and the Holy Spirit (3rd Person of the Trinity) ) decided to save Bob Marley, and even though, (if you accept my contention that it's at least possible that God saved Bob Marley, since The Lord saveth, and no one can snatch a sheep out of the Good Shepherd's hand- not even the lost sheep himself) Marley never would have curried favor, we presume, 35 years ago, with conservative American theologians who were defending Orthodoxy at Dallas Theological Seminary over tea and crumpets each day at lunch, what if Jehovah God did save, by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Bob Marley, because His eternal love for Marley saw through all the cultural and spiritual confusion which contaminated Marley's perception of truth?
Is that contention any more untenable than how Saul of Tarsus was saved, or how Augustine was reportedly converted? I, myself, as Rob Clarkin, was supernaturally converted by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as one of my colleagues also testifies that Jesus supernaturally converted him unto the Galatians 1 Gospel. So back to my primary thread of argumentation, what if the living God did save Bob Marley: does some of his music remain in the renewed heavens and earth, and then, only the songs which great theologians like the Trinity, and accredited friends of the living God like George MacDonald and Francis Schaeffer all concur have just enough theological truth, admixed with heavenly mystery to be retained in the New Jerusalem, but only until Bob Marley works out a new repertoire, and then the Elect all forget about Exodus, Stir it Up, and Three Little Birds...or am I, as Rob Clarkin, having just enough fun with my divine unction, the expression of those ineluctable curve balls which omniscience adjudicates unto me, so I can challenge your own localized perception of commonplace considerations?
In the realm of libertarian free will, I'm willing to wager that this is just what's happening.
Again, from the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to you,
REVIVAL FIRE FALL...
unto all the elect
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