The nature of reality - Tetris or Patience?

I'm reading a book on eschatology - the study of the 'last things'. Thankfully it doesn't seek to establish a time-scale to predict what order things will happen. What it does is remind me that the nature of the ending does make a difference to life here and now.

For a long time I have not taken eschatology seriously. I've always had a vague idea that God's kingdom when it comes will be a massive interruption to life and history and the universe as we know it, rather than as the end point of a slow steady development within history. But I've not thought it mattered much. Are my vague ideas about the future anything like correct? Do I care? If it happens roughly like I expect that's OK by me. If God decides to do something radically different from my expectations that's OK too. I'll find out when it happens.


I've still not come to any firmer conclusions about the nature of the last things. All this stuff about the rapture and the millennium I regard as heavily symbolic. But I have realised that the Christian faith is not based on the life and history of the human race just stretching off forever into the future. Life is not like a perfect game of Tetris. Slotting those falling blocks into place is good fun, and an expert can keep going for a long time. A perfect player, assuming that the speed never increases beyond his capacity to react quickly enough, can in theory just keep playing forever. (NB I say 'his' because females are far too sensible to embark on an infinitely long game of Tetris.) The game is not designed to finish. Or at least not to have a successful finish - in practice it ends when the player makes too many mistakes or gives up out of boredom.


Patience is a different kind of game. From the start it is moving towards a conclusion. The cards begin in random order, but by following the rules and moving them here and there, a degree of order is gradually imposed. The player works towards a conclusion. The game ends when perfect order is achieved. Isn't that the point of all the Biblical teaching on eschatology? Life is moving towards a final purpose. We can debate how much we are involved in the process and how much God is involved. Maybe there are times when some dramatic sudden shift will be instigated by God. The key thing is that such a view should affect the way we live today.

Do I see today as just one more day to get through, making as few mistakes as possible, and expecting tomorrow (and all the tomorrows after that) to be no different from today? Or do I see today as an important step on a journey, for me and for all creation, which will bring us closer to the final perfect pattern of life which God has in store?