Limited Bodies

We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing… While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us…. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.-- 2 Cor 5:2-5 NLT

If everything was already perfect, why would we be looking for new bodies and new homes? I long for the day where I don’t have pain in my back, where my foot fungus totally goes away, and when this body that has so little energy gets rejuvenated and doesn’t hold me back.

The thing that hits me as I’m reading now is the part about the guarantee being the Holy Spirit. Will our new bodies have the Holy Spirit? The way Paul is saying this - in some versions, he says a downpayment - it sounds like the Holy Spirit is a taste of our new bodies, and through it we get a glimpse of what it means to live in our new bodies.

That makes sense to me. Often it seems like the spirit in me wasn’t built for this earthly body. It doesn’t dream or have vision only of the possible, and doesn’t seem limited by the same constraints as the rest of me. The spirit sees and acts with the resources, energy and vision of heaven and I am stuck here; human, frail, limited and utterly incapable.

As Carla will tell you, I pace. I pace a lot. I wake up early in the morning, visions of what can be and what may be possible. I wake up in the middle of the night, interceding for the poor with a body that wants to go back to sleep and a spirit that thinks it can single-handedly change a country. While most people are doing their own thing waiting for God to give them orders, I am brooding how I only have 70 more years to make an impact for the kingdom. Only 70 more years to give poverty and darkness the biggest black eye I can muster.

The spirit in me doesn’t seem to understand the limitations of my body, or my bank account, or my team. It dreams. It groans. And I can fully believe it was created for another kind of body and reality - one without these paltry limitations.