Looking to eternity

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor. 4

This life, when you understand it more clearly, is the gradual process of dying.  Day by day, as we age, our bodies slowly decline, decay, lose strength and move ever closer to death.  Life is really a rather strange word to use for what we experience because real life hasn't even begun yet!  

Because life...the kind of life we can't even imagine...is still ahead we can begin to understand more clearly that this life is not our hope, our future.  This life is not all there is but only a taste of what is ahead.  This life, this creation, is temporary. But ahead is something eternal, glorious, amazing beyond words...real life beyond anything we could even imagine.

That is our hope.  Not a hope for a good life now, for cars and money and a nice house here.  Most never see that, most are rather disappointed by the false promises of prosperity now because that too is only temporary.  Our hope is on the eternal kingdom ahead so that as we go through difficulties now we can endure them knowing this is not the end.  This is not all there is.  Ahead is real life. Ahead is eternity.  

Ahead is all I've ever dreamed of but never understood here....ahead is the world of my dreams made into reality...and it's called God's eternal kingdom.  That's our hope.  That's real life!