Over the rainbow- right where you are! by Gary Rose

Saw this picture today and I couldn’t help thinking about Judy garland singing “Over the Rainbow” in 1939 movie “The Wizard of OZ”. So, I went to YouTube and found the video…

 

Somewhere over the Rainbow

 ( Click on the link to watch the video )

Putting the two ideas together, I asked myself: What if I found myself over the rainbow, then what? What would life be like? What if I had the freedom Judy sang about and life was simply wonderful, again, then what? Would I be happy with blue skies and my heart content with all my dreams having come true?

In a word- NO. Because you see, life is just not about having everything you want and living in a world without problems. I remember seeing a picture from "Whose line is it anyway". Hugh Carey says...

But the Bible says...

 

Romans 12 ( World  English Bible )

1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
2 Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

 

2 Corinthians 3 ( WEB )

1 Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as do some, letters of commendation to you or from you?
2 You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
3 being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, served by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in tablets that are hearts of flesh.
4 Such confidence we have through Christ toward God;
5 not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God;
6 who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 But if the service of death, written engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly on the face of Moses for the glory of his face; which was passing away:
8 won’t service of the Spirit be with much more glory?
9 For if the service of condemnation has glory, the service of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
10 For most certainly that which has been made glorious has not been made glorious in this respect, by reason of the glory that surpasses.
11 For if that which passes away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.
12 Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech,
13 and not as Moses, who put a veil on his face, that the children of Israel wouldn’t look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing away.
14 But their minds were hardened, for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains, because in Christ it passes away.
15 But to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.
16 But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit. 

As I understand it, we are to live in this world, but not to conform ourselves to the attitudes and actions of those who reject God. We are part of the body that Christ died to save. God's Spirit dwells in us when we put on Christ in baptism and continues to guide and mold us into everything God wants us to be. Will this be free of problems and our lives absent of difficulties? NO, it won't, but I we do the will of God in our lives we will eventually be blessed for our lives.

Again, I think of that first picture and with it the realization that we are in fact at the end of the rainbow. We don't genuinely need things there or happy circumstances to fulfill our lives, but if we have Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; that is more than anyone could even imagine.

Somehow a verse of Scripture comes back to me...

 

Colossians 1 ( WEB )

27 to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory;

Enough said.