The Joy of What We’re Becoming

I scribbled a thought on a sticky note a while ago. Just a passing reflection, something I didn’t want to lose. It said: “They know what is going to become of them… the tragedy is…” I wasn’t sure what the ending was supposed to be at the time. Maybe I was thinking about those who choose not to see. Those who sense something greater but walk away from it, or bury it beneath noise and fear. It ached because I could feel how much was being missed.

But today, without warning, the sentence transformed itself in my spirit: *”We know what is going to become of us… the joy of it is…” And I could barely breathe. This is not the end of a story, it’s the arrival of now.

For so long, the message of Christ has been delivered as a warning. As a coming judgment. As a someday salvation, if we do the right things and cling tight enough to the edge of grace. But Jesus never spoke like that. Not to those who heard Him with open hearts. He said things like:

“The kingdom of God is within you.”
“Before Abraham was, I AM.”
“I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one.”

These are not future statements. They are declarations of present reality.

And the early church fathers heard it that way, too.  They spoke often of becoming. Not in fear, but in glory. Irenaeus famously said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” They didn’t see our lives as a linear climb toward moral perfection but as a radiant unfolding of what had already been spoken over us: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

They didn’t need equations. They had encounter. The early church didn’t explain reality through formulas or probabilities. They described it through face-to-face glory—through stories, tears, and the burning of hearts when Christ walked beside them unrecognized, then suddenly revealed. They didn’t quantify light. They touched it.

And the Transfiguration?

Peter, James, and John weren’t just witnessing something extraordinary about Jesus. They were catching a glimpse of what humanity looks like when fully awake in union. That’s why they didn’t want to leave the mountain.

Because in that moment:

• The dust of earth and the fire of divinity were no longer separate.
• Jesus wasn’t becoming something new—He was revealing what was always true.
• And in Him, so were they.

They saw the brightness of the human story, not as blinding, but as belonging. The transfiguration was not an exception. It was a mirror. A preview of the sons and daughters of light who would one day shine as He shines, because we are in Him and He is in us.

They saw the transfiguration not just as an event on a mountain, but as a preview of our own becoming.

We are not becoming something foreign to us. We are becoming what heaven already knows. What the Father already sees. What Christ already united in Himself.

They didn’t need quantum mechanics to explain entanglement. They had John leaning against Christ’s chest, feeling the rhythm of eternal love. They didn’t need light equations. They had Moses glowing after speaking with God face to face. They didn’t define glory. They stood in it, trembling, and called it grace.

And the ones who followed? They knew that the mountain light wasn’t just for Jesus. It was for us. That one day, our faces would shine too. We are not waiting to be transformed… we are remembering what was hidden in us all along.

And the joy of it is…

…that the tragedy is not the end of the sentence anymore. The signs of the time don’t have to frighten us. They are not flashing warnings of doom but birthing pangs of restoration. The systems of this world may be shaking, but the unshakable Kingdom has already come.

We know what will become of us, and we know who we are becoming. We are sons and daughters of light, image-bearers restored. We are living echoes of a finished work, waking up to the sound of our own resurrection.

And the joy of it is… unspeakable. But it is real.

Now.