I was thinking recently about how many times the Bible talks about saints seeing other saints they have known but not seen for a long time. I started making a list and it kept growing and growing. The list is far from complete. There are likely so many others, but take time to look at these and see just how often God tells us about the joy we have of once again being with those who have touched our lives. This article is not just a list. Keep reading and you will see why.
Think of all the emotions connected with those around Joseph. His first question to his brethren was to ask if his father was still alive. His next action was to bring Jacob to his side. There was grain in Egypt that awaited Jacob during the remaining years of the famine, but nothing could compare with the joy when Joseph was reunited with his father whom he had not seen for almost three decades!
Remember that father who said, “Bring forth the best robe…a ring…shoes…the fatted calf…and let us eat, and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again…” (Luke 15:22-24). What reunion could possibly be better than this!
Paul wrote often to Christians he had known in the past about hoping to see them again. He told the Romans that his desire to see them would be realized. “I long to see you…that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me” (Rom. 1:11-12). In his letter to the church at Thessalonica, he minded them of the opposition which had driven him out of the city, but that he was still present with them, not literally, but in his heart and that he had “…endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire…but Satan hindered us” (1 Thess. 2:17-18).
Paul had a special relationship with Timothy, his son in the faith, and mentions in both letters of his desire to see him again (1 Tim. 3:14; 2 Tim. 1:4; 4:11-13). He expressed it this way, “…without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy” (2 Tim. 1:4).
My list goes on and on, but there is no space to show it. However, there is another reunion that awaits us. Over the years we have known brethren we loved but are now dead. Can you imagine the joy that awaits us on the other side? To paraphrase part of a song we sing, “What a joy it will be when the Savior we see. When He takes us by the hand and leads us through the promised land; what a day, glorious day that will be.” We miss them so much. We long to see them again. It will happen! If you think earthly reunions are amazing, they are nothing to be compared to our heavenly one!