The Restoration of All Things
I recently wrote a poem called “Someday I Will Fly” and created a video for it as well. It was inspired by the idea that this Earth we live on will someday be restored. Someday, all death and decay, corruption, and evil of every kind will be gone. Creation will finally have full freedom to live, and to live fully and beautifully the way it was intended to be.
This idea is not one of my own. It comes from various verses in the Bible. First, Revelation 21:1-2 says,
Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
I don’t know how God will manage all of this, but I’m glad He will. A new heaven, a new earth! Can you imagine? In Romans 8:19-21 we see a little glimpse of what that will mean for creation.
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
When I visit my Dad, we like to go on a bike ride when weather permits. We have a variety of routes we like to take, but many of these routes near their end on an old country road. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. We get to see the canopy of trees above us, the crick flowing under a bridge, and then we come upon something not so natural. A trash dump.
Someone likes to use the side of the road leading down towards the crick as their personal trash dump. Old tires, cans, and other garbage litter this area. Whoever uses this space attempts to burn their trash, so its full of ash and half burnt debris. It’s a horrible act of violence against the beauty of nature and it makes me angry each time I see it. I imagine that little area there as one that “waits in eager expectation” for when it “will be liberated from its bondage to decay.”
I love nature. It’s a place I can go to worship God, to watch his artistry unfold in front of me. I like to imagine God with a brush or some kind of sculpturing tool just creating and creating. And it pains me to see how not only does nature die of its own accord, but it dies also because of humanity. We are undoing God’s artistry in nature! The only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that all of this will change one day. One day, nature and humanity will live in harmony. One day, we will have the ability to live within nature without taking its life.
After meditating on this idea and those verses, I came up with the poem that I present here in video. I hope that it gives you hope—that one day we will get to see a glorious creation, a creation that radiates in colors of all kinds, that bears its beauty the way it was intended to! And maybe, just maybe we will get to fly over it all to see that beauty from a different perspective.
If you prefer to read the poem, I’ve included the text below the video. Enjoy!
Someday I Will Fly
Someday I will fly.
Not with wings of steel
or engines drowning out the gales
will I touch the sky.
But with lightness of heart
and knowledge of the angels
I’ll leap into that beautiful space,
mind and body lifting,
daring to soar upon God’s great art
and into the wild wind
on wings of mercy
and grace.
Sweet communion
with the Spirit so Holy—my compass,
my flight companion.
We’ll ride high above the earth,
the bloom of our hearts our wings.
I want you to see this,
Spirit will say,
and I’ll follow, tipping my own
spirit wing down on the right,
entering a land from a perspective
never seen.
Turquoise and aqua waters,
tipped white with foam,
every shade of blue
from sea to sky.
Blue, blue, blue, sweet heavenly blue
coat the surface of my eyes,
permeate into my heart
and it blooms again, lifting me higher.
I want you to see this,
Spirit will say,
guiding me north through
a white mist of clouds.
I lose my bearing
but trust my guide,
and soon,
sunlight pierces,
and a single ray
opens the blinding white
like a curtain.
And down we dive,
down, down we dive,
as down is not to be feared
with the Spirit guide.
And green reveals itself to me.
Rolling shades of green-emerald and pine and growing
green rolling and undulating
just like the sea, but slowly.
Spirit takes a dip and I follow,
swooping around great oaks
and skinny saplings,
slipping between outstretched branches,
fluttering leaves like hands tickling my
skin. And I laugh.
My heart blooms again
and lifts me up, up, up,
and I am following that Holy Spirit
without even thought this time.
I want you to see this,
Spirit says.
And we fly onward, above the clouds
until I find myself above a white expanse.
White, white, white,
the piercingly pure white
of snow and ice
lays its bare heart exposed
and glistening in the sun.
A sparkling white field laid out
as far as eye can see,
kisses the sun
in that distant horizon.
And on that day, I will not
discern Sun from
it’s lover, Land.
And on that day, I will not
discern Heaven
from Earth.