As a human being, I have moments, times/days, when I feel like paint splattered all over a wall. The whole experience is not so much bad; it's just that I don't have everything of me together in one place. My soul feels sticky and messy and smeared all over the place inside me. A lot of things can bring this on for me: exhaustion, lots of work, a semi-bad day, etc. I think the whole condition is one of being near God and then being far from him while still physically craving the ecstasy of being near to him. It's a weird place, like being torn between two realms, one of joy/pleasure/happiness and the other one being static, uncomfortable, unable to provide what I need. The only thing that really feels good out of it, is if the smearing is being done ALL OVER God. Then it gets good :)
I love being paint that is just smothered all over Jesus. It feels incredible and it's like I know what I am at the level of my soul. I'm just this spiritual stuff and I've been mashed and rubbed all over Jesus and it feels wonderful. It makes me really wonder about what we will be like when we are raised in our spiritual body:
It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; is it sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual man did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. 1 Corinthians 15:43-49. NIV
I wonder what will we be like in our physical body after the resurrection? I can feel my spirit with God; and I know that Jesus still had bones and skin and people knew it was him when they saw him - if he wanted people to know it was him. But what will it be like, feel like when my body is made into my spirit physically? When the Transfiguration occurred, the disciples immediately knew they were looking at Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17:3). No introductions, no conversation, nothing. They just knew. In this world, one of the hardest things to accomplish with another person is to truly know them.
I love the King James translation of Genesis 4:1. It says, "Adam knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain."[italics added] How true is that translation? Beats the crap out of the other translations. Like:
"lay with his wife"(NIV)
"slept with his wife" (The Message)
"had relations with his wife" (NASB)
Man, Bill Murray would be proud of that one! (Bad Lost in Translation joke. PS I haven't see it yet either) When did knowing get downgraded in our language to "sex," "sleeping with," "relations," or a host of other words and terms we've derived for knowing someone intimately. Or worse, going out and reading a book about it? Oh, how enlightened we have become! How bad is that problem though in this world? Really being known and knowing someone else? And it's not just labeled only to physical intimacy either; conversational intimacy, emotional intimacy, mental intimacy –all these kinds of intimacy go under the umbrella term: spiritual intimacy. Really truly knowing another is a wonderful, satisfying, joyful, pleasurable thing. That's why marriage is so incredible. Knowing someone who was made by God to be your soul mate. That's perfect! And that's the picture God is making for us with him in Heaven. We are marrying him. And what will we do forever? We will know him. And he will know us. And as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:12: "then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." And so we will also know each other. Knowing Moses and Elijah just by looking at them was only the beginning, a slight taste of heavenly intimacy we will share with each other. No longer will we feel "left out." There are no outsiders in the house of our Father. We will be together, one, and never apart with Jesus. Loneliness will be gone forever; so will feelings of exclusion and feelings of dissatisfaction with not being able to enjoy others, converse with others, share parts of us with others. Heaven will truly be an adventure in intimacy, with God and with each other.
When we are finally who we are suppose to be, what will it be like when we are intimate with Jesus? When everything we are is splattered all over our Lover? What will our intimacy with him look like? I truly believe it’s something beyond our knowing. It’s one of those 1 Corinthians “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived” kind-of-thing. Not to be corny or anything, but I think a pretty picture of it is a canvas smeared with paint. Where we are the paint, all smeared together and all over the canvas. And where Jesus is the canvas.
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