This is probably what we still are, as much as we wish were more. We are just getting started.
He sent forth His Spirit, sent for His Savior, birthed us of water and Spirit. (John 3)
We exist.
But we remain tightly bound in the womb of the world. So much happening all around us, in us, beyond us. We’re growing our senses, our ability to comprehend what is. We’re affected by the nutrition and toxins that flow through our space. Our hearts are beating, our ears are hearing, our bones are lengthening, and our nerves are signaling, but we don’t yet have the capacity for what’s out there. Some days it begins to feel awfully tight in here. We realize that for all the amazing provision growing and sustaining us in this place, we can’t stay here forever. We won’t. We don’t really want to.
Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of man the things God has prepared for those who love Him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 (And how I anticipate the wonder at our “delivery” out of this world, where we see as not through a glass… just like a wide-eyed newborn staring at all the incomprehensible that was there all along.
Just like my children that I carried knew me from the inside, we can know the Father. My children were all born with a taste for green veggies and for coffee, a love for movement and music, an inherent need to be with me. And my eyes, or ears, or something. They were in me, and my genetics were in them.
But I no longer live (as independent); Christ lives in me. And Jesus walked atop water and through walls. We’re not limited to the physical universe anymore. (Please don’t get silly and go jump off the roof. Read the Gospels and pay attention.)
So we already bear the image of the Father, we are in the Son, we are alive by the Spirit. And we are acquiring His tastes:
We love justice.
We draw near the brokenhearted.
We care for the widow and the orphan, and join Him placing the lonely in families.
We give to the poor as to the Lord, and He will provide all we need.
The Lord opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble… so we choose humble.
We understand that the meek will inherit the earth.
He comes to serve and not be served; to give His life… and we join Him.
We learn to rejoice in the truth, even if it hurts.
We weep with those who weep.
In His strength we love in a way that covers a multitude of sin.
We forgive as we have been forgiven.
Only by grace do we understand the truth. Only because He made us to know it, and has not withheld Himself from us. He who seeks will find; to him who knocks the door will be opened.