"It Isn't Right!"

"It isn't right!" I declared to my husband last night. "It just isn't right!" I had just received news that a friend of mine from college who has been battling leukemia for several months was getting seriously worse. From my viewpoint, I was dwelling on the fact that it wasn't right because she was making a difference in the world. Having adopted two children who are still relatively young, she, in my mind, is needed to raise them, provide for them, and nurture them to be sent out into the world one day. And although I have been out of touch with her in recent years, I know that this friend, as a believer in CHRIST, is doing other things to impact the world.

But what was at the heart of my cry of injustice was that it truly isn't right. And it stems from the day that Adam and Eve disobeyed the LORD's mandate to not partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From that day forward, pain and suffering, through sin, entered our world. And it will not be right until the LORD returns. John, the author of Revelation, saw a vision for what it will be like in the end - when all of the pain and suffering is gone forever.

"Then I [John] saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away' " (21:1-4). 

I long for this as I see friends like this one - or family, or friends of friends - physically suffer so greatly. I long for the LORD to return when I hear of injustice being done in the world. And I long for JESUS to make things right when I look at my own life, my own sin, my own willingness to partake of what the LORD demanded me not to touch. Come, LORD JESUS, come!