Rejoice that Your Name is Written in Heaven

People often live with a chronic low-grade dissatisfaction with their lives, a feeling that something, somehow, is missing. So, we often spend our lives blindly chasing accomplishments, because each time we reach a goal, we get a temporary high that makes us feel like everything’s alright. Then, because reaching a goal makes us feel temporarily better, we often think that there is a certain big goal that, if we were to get it, would make us feel permanently better—something that would save our souls from the pain of this life.

Yet, we all know deep down that this line of thinking is flawed. Harvard psychologist Tal Ben-Shamar called it "The Arrival Fallacy."

After Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples to preach the gospel in Israel, they "returned to him with joy, saying, 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!'” (Luke 10:17) They were filled with that primal joy success gives us. Maybe they thought they had finally been given the success that would bring permanent fulfillment.

They were probably mostly ordinary people, and suddenly they found themselves disciples of the most remarkable and famous rabbi of their time (and, as history would prove, the most famous man in history). And what's more, but they've been given literal supernatural power for success in ministry.

They went out as ordinary people, and they found out they had been gifted in quite extraordinary ways and were riding the high of accomplishment.

Yet, Jesus replied to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

In other words, cultivate joy in what matters. Place your hope in the only arrival that will ever permanently fulfill you--your arrival on The Golden Shore of heaven. Until then, we sail on turbulent seas, and nothing on the ship of life will satisfy us like pulling into port in The City of God.

In this life, no business success, no marriage, no children, no fame or admiration, and no physical health will ever permanently satisfy our hearts, so don't put your hope in them. If you do, you will always be frantically chasing the next high, and you will either be crushed when you don't get it—or worse—crushed when you do get it and find that the excitement fades.

So, rejoice not in the power or success God gives you but that you get God himself. Rejoice that despite your waywardness, the Good Shepherd would come to find you, his lost sheep. Rejoice that despite your sin, you have been forgiven and welcomed into the arms of a loving Father.

In what ways are you trying to “arrive” before your ship reaches port, and how much more joyful would you be if you stopped living for things that will never satisfy?

You may accomplish great things in this life and should be thankful. But don’t rejoice in those things. Rejoice that your name is written in heaven.