FBCD_FaithEssentials_June_FlipBook

Todd Gaddis

reunited with pets that have died. However, I do believe we’ll enjoy God’s creatures in a transformed atmosphere of safety and playfulness. In the resurrected world, we will also find pleasure and gratification in the inanimate side of creation. With so many beautiful places to see on this doomed planet, just imagine what’s in store when the curse is removed. Many are kept from personally enjoying such sights now because of lack of finances, career responsibilities, etc. These and other restrictions won’t exist in the world to come. Notice that I include the heavens too. Since we’ve gone to the moon under sin’s dominion, imagine the new galaxies we’ll explore in the world to come. “What will we be able to accomplish for God’s glory when we have resurrected minds, unlimited resources, complete scientific cooperation, and no more death?” 6 In other words, learning won’t cease with the destruction of the old earth. Rather, it will take on all new dimensions. Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards said, “The saints will be progressive in knowledge to all eternity.” 7 The height of this fresh comprehension will center upon God’s Word, since the Bible says it will remain forever (Psalm 119:89, Matthew 24:35). In 1952, Florence Chadwick entered Pacific Ocean waters off Catalina Island, determined to swim to the shore of mainland California. She was already the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. In cold, foggy conditions, she could barely see the boats alongside her. Resolute, she continued for fifteen hours. When she pleaded to be taken out of the water, her mother in a nearby boat told her she was close and urged her on. Emotionally and physically drained, Frances eventually got pulled from the water, only to discover that she was less than half a mile from her destination. “All I could see was the fog . . . I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.” Despite coming up short, she attempted the same feat two months later. This time she completed the 26-mile swim—the first woman to do so—shaving two hours off the men’s record. The same

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