SCRIPTURE
HEBREWS 12

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin
that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the
race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer
and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured
the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of
the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition
from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

—HEBREWS 12:1-3

A preacher once gave an illustration of life with God that I’ve returned to often. Sometimes, he said, we have this idea that God is behind us or somewhere overhead, shouting at us to walk forward in obedience. But the better image, he said, is that of God as a parent teaching a toddler how to walk. The parent stands out in front of the toddler, beckoning with a smile, welcoming the child into the good future. This is the picture I have when the writer of Hebrews urges us to fix our eyes on Jesus. Perhaps this is even the picture of what Jesus was doing when he fixed his eyes on the “joy set before him.”

After my long season of waiting to be a mother, when my son was just a few months old, I entered a different kind of painful waiting in discernment and decision-making. As a new mom I really didn’t want to take on new risks or challenges, yet I felt God edging me away from my comfort zone. But I was stuck. I felt afraid of making a wrong investment with the opportunities I had been given, wondering if I could really do what I thought was being asked of me.

Then one morning in prayer I remembered that sermon and sensed Jesus's invitation to fix my eyes on him. I could see myself as that toddler learning to walk. I had been obsessively looking at the ground, fearful and fretting, unable to move. But when I looked up, I was captured by the joy on Jesus’s face, and I suddenly felt the energy and urgency to walk forward. While I couldn't see into the future, I was assured that the One who could saw something good and beautiful there, and was beckoning me to come join him in it. Now, nearly a decade later, I am in another season of waiting and discernment (they keep coming, don’t they?), and while the fears and opportunities are different, the invitation is the same.

I've come to call this experience borrowing joy from the future, and it has opened me up to a truth I should have realized all along. This is always what God has made available to us! We have been invited into God’s story, into God’s future. When we declare that Jesus is Lord, we are confessing that in this story God gets to write the ending—and it is good.

So there is a joyful certainty out ahead, whether it is in my lifetime or not. And the joyful certainty is that God’s good kingdom will indeed come! One day, everything we are now waiting for will be reality. There will be no more death, sickness, tears, or oppression. There will be no violence or isolation, and all will be well. God’s good and beautiful dream for God’s creation will be fully realized, and every tribe and tongue will be united in worship. God’s kingdom will come, and his will will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

This is the joyful future that awaits us, no matter what our present looks like. But in God’s grace, God doesn’t leave that joy only in the future. As we fix our eyes on Jesus, we experience the miraculous truth that God’s joy is rushing from the future into our present. God shares joy with us so we can participate in God’s joyful future now. We may borrow joy from the future, but God is the one who lends it to us—and God doesn’t ask for it back!

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION, DISCUSSION, AND PRAYER

What comes to your mind when you think of fixing your eyes on Jesus?

Where and how do you need God to lend you God’s joy right now?

What good gifts fill you with gratitude today?