White Sand Beaches

Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings talks of white sand beaches welcoming us home after death and it makes me ponder what this life is all about. Is it simply a birth into our full life? The few years we have here in this world simply as a waiting area for the next? If so, what is it we are here to do? Because honestly, in light of the spiritual realities and miraculous events that are chronicled in scriptures, by great thinkers, and even fiction cause me to wonder how much is beyond what we can see through our senses.

Likely, we've all seen God at work around us in some mundane, or other times miraculous ways. But why do we not see God's miracles more often? Is it because we don't have our eyes trained on the glory of God but on the things of this world? Or is God active in the mundane more often than the miraculous? Or are we waiting around for God to join us where we are to do miracles versus going and joining God where he is doing the miraculous? If God were working around us what kind of miracles could he do? We have food, we have shelter, we're not being persecuted, we can worship openly without ridicule or threat; where do the miracles of God fit into this? What would a miracle look like? 

American Christian culture exclaims that there is so much more to this life than we're living for currently, but what does that look like here?

U2 sings they still haven't found what they're looking for…and they've accomplished the ultimate success, touched many lives, and impacted people globally physically, emotionally, spiritually. They've fought the fight of AIDS in Africa, global hunger, and spent a lifetime influencing the other artists of our time. And they still haven't found what they're looking for.

What do our lives look like if we have our eyes focused on the white sand beaches ahead of us? Does it look different?