WHAT IF GOD LIKES US FAT?

A friend and I were half-way through our 3-mile walk and had just made the turn back toward her house. We'd been meeting a couple of times a week to walk, talk, and hopefully contain some of the middle-age spread threatening to envelope us both. As we hoofed it toward home, Amy commented, "One thing I'm going to LOVE about heaven is finally having a glorified body! Honey, I'm going to be a perfect '10'!" She signed a curvy figure in the air in front of her with her hands.

I laughed and thought how wonderful it would be to never again have to face the dilemma of too-tight jeans or embarrassing party photos. Then a thought hit me. "Amy, we know we're going to have perfect bodies, but we don't even really know what a perfect body looks like. I mean, we have our own ideas of 'perfect,' but they're all distorted. What if....what if God thinks the perfect body for us is a fat body?" Okay, I admit it - my mind works in weird ways sometimes.

Amy stopped cold in her tracks. "Girl, I want to slap you. Don't you say things like that!" She glared at me, hands on her hips. Shaking her head, she exhaled a whispered "Damn!" and then took off down the road at double speed.

I jogged to catch up with Amy and we both laughed. "Okay, okay, we both get to be perfect '10-s'," I agreed, "but I'm just saying, '10' may not be what we're thinking. Still, whatever it is, it's going to be awesome!"

All this to say, this redeemed life isn't always what I'm thinking it should be. Anyone who has read Scripture knows God doesn't save us to a life of health, wealth, and prosperity. But I can't help thinking, couldn't there at least be a little less sore joints keeping me awake at night? Less too-many-bills, too-little-money? Less which-car-is-in-the-shop-this-week? A little less grief and drama and fear?

Then I consider guys like Jeremiah and Job and Joseph and Elijah, and I can't help thinking they'd answer me, "No, Camille. Not one iota less. Because all of this, every bit of it, is part of God's work of transforming you into something beautiful." Becoming a Perfect 10 is no easy thing. Thank God for the promise of Glory, where Amy and I will some day meet, clothed in new and perfect bodies, transformed into the likeness of our brother Christ and rejoicing at the amazing goodness of God.

The sweetness of the best created thing is a fading flower; if not before, yet certainly at death it must fade away. Job 4:21. "Does not their excellency, which is in them, go away?" Yes, yes, whether they are the natural excellencies of the body, acquired endowments of the mind, lovely features, graceful qualities, or anything else we find attractive; all these like pleasant flowers are withered, faded, and destroyed by death. "But Christ is still the same, yesterday, today, and forever," Heb. 13:8. - John Flavel