Dads are in a strange position for nine months in their lives. Their child is conceived and they become a father. And yet for nine months they don’t get any of the benefits of being a father. They don’t get the experience of being pregnant, and the women all say, “Why not!” They don’t have the morning sickness, the lower back pain, they ever increasing awkwardness of mobility with a twenty pound bowling ball strapped to their midsection.
But they also don’t get to feel the little flutters and small kicks that signal in a tangible way that there is someone growing inside them. Those become almost constant reminders of the other’s presence as the time draws near. Moms get extra time being a mom.
What moms eat during pregnancy affects their joint baby. Dad’s diet makes no difference. If dad is stressed at work, baby doesn’t feel it. But when mom is stressed, baby gets bathed in those hormones. Mom’s life touches baby’s. Mom is already being a mom. Dad just sits on the sidelines. He already is a dad, but he really doesn’t yet get any of the benefits of it. But the moment birth takes place, dads can step up to the plate and fully participate. Their fatherhood has been fully realized. That little one has a dad in a new sense, one that has whiskers and smiles.
This already but not yet state is a condition that John talks about in our text. There are parts of our eternal life that we get to experience in only a small way while we walk here on earth. We are God’s children when we walk in the light as He is in the light. When we continue to trust in His work on our behalf, the work done to cancel our sin debt, then we become His children. But there are still more benefits of that family connection that we don’t fully understand or experience right now. We only have limited knowledge of that next experience.
But just like fathers are fathers and then become fathers when their child is born, so the moment Jesus returns we who are children of God will become children of God in a fuller way. The reality of our identity will be more fully exposed. Something of our experience will change. We remain children of God, just as we are now already.
But one thing will be different: we will see Jesus face to face. What we have taken by faith based on the eyewitness accounts and the confirmation of the Holy Spirit, we will at that moment know in a new way. We will see Him. Just like the father who gets to see the ultrasound image of their child in the womb, we have glimpses of Jesus in the Scripture. But we will have all the details filled in when we see Him face to face.
That is going to be some day! Are you ready?
The Arnold Journey 