Beyond the Veil
Between our world and the abode of God, there stands a veil. This impenetrable barrier can only be lifted when our soul leaves the mortal body. Mortality has to give way to immorality in order to cross over from life into the abode of God. True believers look forward to that glorious time but for now, we still have work to do… right here and right now! God assigned us these temporary vessels to house our eternal soul and spirit. He assigned this body to us long before we were born. The veil that I speak about separates us from our final destination until we complete the earthly missions we were assigned.
Although spiritually matured believers delight in thinking about what might be beyond this life, we are here for a reason. Finding our purpose is what we really need to be focusing our attention upon. Looking beyond what God has placed before us will not get us there any faster. Such a time table is stored in the mind of our Maker. This mortal clock doesn’t run out until God says it’s done. What you see before you is the mission God has for you to achieve. Please don’t take lightly His mission and purpose for you.
There is so much thought about heaven and rightfully so. Fact is, no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind can conceive what God has in store for us beyond the veil. Oddly as I began to write this essay we lost a very famous soul that is no longer with us in the body. He along with eight other special souls are beyond the veil that separated them from their true eternal home. Kobe Bryant along with eight others, including his eldest daughter died just a few hours after I started this very paragraph. Their deaths will be mourned all around the world. Such tragedies bring our mortality closer to view.
Like many celebrities before Kobe, the world mourns his passing because we feel that he was one of us. He is one of God’s own family members who apparently did a wonderful job of showcasing some of the best talents and abilities human beings have to offer. The worldwide response to this tragedy reveals that somewhere in our humanity we care about one another. In loosing one of our own, a well-celebrated member of our human family, we are reminded that we are indeed a family.
The same love and concern that most of us feel about someone that is essentially a stranger is what God would expect of each of us. Love one another and treat one another, as you would want it done for you. We are all God’s children. Somewhere along the line we become distracted by factions designed to do just that, separate us from the love of God and thereby from the love of one another. This wedge is doing its job very well… when we allow it to do so. As we become distracted by divisive forces we tend to draw our attention away from God’s love through which we share our common bond. It takes something like the loss of a famous person that we admire to remind us that we are a family… however, fragmented we may have become.
As I cover this topic the thought came to mind that there are essentially two main veils that need addressing. The eternal veil of separation from earth to heaven, which is death; and the veil of separation within the confines of earth, which we control. There is nothing we can do about death, but we can do something about the veil we allow to separate us from one another. We have the power to choose love over hate. God gave us this power but we must exercise it. However, there is no power upon the earth can separate us from the love of God if we put our trust and faith in Him. Paul writes to the Romans:
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” 8:38–39.
I realize that non-Christians might have a problem with the reference to Christ but the love that we felt for our brother Kobe, his daughter and seven other loving souls was not motivated by religion, it is rooted in love for our fellow human beings. Such love comes directly from God and not through the divisions that we allowed to grow between us.
Personally I feel that we place too much authority upon our religious divides than we do in God, the Creator of us all. We have the ability to control this veil. We cannot avoid the separation caused by the death of the body but we can avoid the separation from God. We should keep our attention focused upon God, the One we attribute to being Creator of all things in the heavens and upon the earth. Unfortunately, our religions are used as wedges to divide us. When you cut off the flow of love that comes from God it’s like blocking the rays of light that comes from the sun.
We shouldn’t allow borders of division such as between nations, cultures, nationalities, races, genders, and all such divides to separate us from God’s love. This veil need not exist. It only remains alive as we allow it so. One of the main contributing factors is the ignorance of our commonality. If we continue to see ourselves through the lens of our differences we do not see God, our common Creator. He sees us as His most precious creations. The issue is, are we willing to look up to the Most High God or are we compelled to follow the lower powers that divide and separate us? We have the ability to bound the powers upon the earth and above.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” NIV
We have the power to decide whether we allow the veils that divide us, or whether we will exercise our power to love one another. Will we choose love over hate, or will we allow the evil factions to corrupt us? If you believe in the superiority of God then you decide. Let those who have ears to hear, hear this message. Beyond the veil, the Light that is in God is always shinning, in this life and the hereafter… Selah!
