When I get to heaven and all things are revealed, when I see no longer as through a glass darkly, I expect I will learn that many things are less important than I thought they were, but also, that many things are more important than I thought of or treated them.
Sometimes I wonder which category will have more - the things I care or attend too much to, or the things I don't value or I neglect.
I suppose we all know a little what I'm talking about -- our personal "deal breaker doctrines" that others are happier to agree to disagree about, or the things we don't do (or we do) and we're aware that others believe and act as if these actions are essential to truth and godliness. I don't know if anyone really believes that cleanliness is next to godliness, but occasionally I find myself really hoping it's not (as I sit on a film of cat hair or leave my dishes in the sink for three days).
Sometimes I think about my dad and his Big Deals which often did not line up with mine -- the things he was passionate about and I either disagreed or (!!) didn't care. In his fullness of being and knowledge, what has he found? That they mattered less or more?
It is not just a matter of Romans 7, where the very thing I know matters I treat as if it doesn't. Although, sometimes it is that. Because, it is not as if I am in here in the absolute dark, bumbling along to prioritize things all on my own, with the one next to me discovering a whole other set of values in their own dark stumbling. Nor, though, is it as if I am in the absolute clear, where The Bible Tells Me So and there's no room for different understandings, even discernments and convictions.
Or, it may be that what mattered to him should matter to him, but not necessarily to me.
But, I do still wonder whether there are (more) things I care too little about, or too much, and how I can know that now, as it is known in heaven.
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