But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication will rise with healing wings, and you will skip about like calves released from the stall. (Malachi 4:2)
My family raises our beef. The other day I looked out the window to see three red angus charge past. Dad had left the pasture gate open and the escapees were having a good trot around the house. A two-month-old calf took the lead, his long legs causing him to rock more than gallop.
“Hey Junior, slow down,” the mama cow seemed to say. “It’s all I can do to keep up with this udder bouncin’ hither and yon.”
A frolicking good time was had by all until Farmer Dad chased the mischievous bovines to their side of the fence.
Malachi says I’m going to jump around the new creation like that calf. When every fear, including the fear of acting silly, is removed from our existence, then Malachi’s prophesy will come true. I’ll leap through my new home of green and gold, rest and healing. Best of all, the delight of my heart, whose name is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, will run beside me and laugh a hearty welcome. Everything I remotely hoped for, and much more, will become my new reality.
The assurance that I will skip in heaven is born of the unshakable promises made all through the Bible.
You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalms 16:11) (NIV)
Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake -some to everlasting life … (Daniel 12:2)
And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. (John 14:3)
Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more - or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist. (Revelation 21:3-4)
It is all so real, so absolutely certain—I could do a calf leap right now.