I have suggested in the past that we ought, when tempted toward pride in our own spiritual maturity, take an honest look at how far we have to go, at the great gap between where we are and where we will be. When, on the other hand, we are assaulted by doubt, we ought to take an honest look at where we started, and where we have come. The truth is that apart from Jesus, the most pious men to have ever walked the planet were immeasurably distant from moral perfection until the moment they died. And the most scandalous sinner who came to Christ at the last possible moment traversed that infinite distance immediately upon his death.
All of this, and a fairly steady diet of science fiction, had led me to tweak this understanding a bit. We can make a difference. Suppose that in a distant galaxy, a kajillion light years away, there is Planet Perfection. Not only is it a perfect planet for human habitation, it is a planet fit only for perfect human habitation. Now suppose you receive two things in the mail, first, citizenship papers to Planet Perfection. In fact, you’ve been adopted by the King of the planet, who just happens, by the way, to rule the whole of the universe.
Also in the mail, however, is your ticket to get there. No, you won’t be doing warp speed on the Enterprise. Even that would take too long. No, you’re going teleportation express. There is a time appointed for you to appear at the teleportation station. Once there you’ll step into the chamber and instantaneously be both transported and transformed, arriving at the same moment perfect on Planet Perfection.
Of course you’re excited. You’re also grateful, and eager to please your new Father. But it will do you precious little good to board a plane, a train or an automobile setting out for the planet. You could, theoretically, get a bit closer, but not so you would notice. What, though, could you do? While in one sense every bit of travel you can muster won’t make much of a difference in how far you have to go, won’t you rejoice in every step toward not the planet but the portal? Wouldn’t you rejoice as you pack your bags? Wouldn’t the journey to the station increase your excitement and anticipation? All you have to do is get to the station, and then in an instant you’ll be a perfect prince on Planet Perfect. And every day you get a day closure to departure.
But there’s more. In the in-between, after you’ve received your paperwork and before you step into the portal, every bit of becoming more what you will be, more what your adoptive Father is, is like already being there on the planet. You are becoming what you will be, living in light of the promise of Planet Perfect.
I have so very far to go. But He already loves me as if I were all the way there. He has already made me His son. I’m packing my bags, and learning the manners of the court. And He is preparing me for that place.