The Sigh

As God’s story becomes your story, you make this wonderful discovery: you will graduate from this life into heaven. Jesus’ plan is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). “All things” includes your body. Your blood-pumping heart, arm-hinging elbow, weight-supporting torso. God will reunite your body with your soul and create something unlike anything you have seen: an eternal body.

You will finally be healthy. You never have been. Even on the days you felt fine, you weren’t. You were a sitting duck for disease, infections, airborne bacteria, and microbes. I hate disease. I’m sick of it. So is Jesus. Consider His response to the suffering of a deaf mute. “He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened’ ” (Mark 7:33–34).

Everything about this healing stands out. The way Jesus separates the man from the crowd. The tongue and ear touching. But it’s the sigh that we notice. Jesus looked up to heaven and sighed. This is a sigh of sadness, a deep breath, and a heavenly glance that resolves, “It won’t be this way for long.”

Blessings

Dianna