Tristan’s Adventure

Tristan’s adventure started somewhere in the vastness of before-time-began,

God has planted eternity in the human heart
(Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT)

when God created the angels to help him oversee his affairs in Heaven. God’s always been like that – the creative, sharing type; super indulgent, ever inventive. To each angel he gave a token, a little bit of himself, an implant that said, ‘I represent God’.

God had a box of these iconic tokens. Myriads of myriads of them. Whatever a ‘myriad’ is. There were lots of them, anyway. And when he’d given one to each of his angelic ambassadors, there were still a few billion left . As God counted the tokens in the box, he noticed one in the shape of a letter ‘T’ that shone brightly and gleamed like yellow gold. It looked up at God as if to say, ‘Select me! Select me!’ ‘Not now, but soon’, God said. ‘I have had someone in mind for you from the beginning’.

Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I chose you.
Before you were born, I set you apart for a special work
(Jeremiah 1:5 ICB)

So it came to pass that God, being ever so creative and in a particularly inventive mood, called a meeting of the angels and announced that he was going to make a physical universe. And while he was at it, some people to manage his affairs there. So he did. And God gave to each one a token from his box, a little bit of himself, an imprint on the forehead that said, ‘God’s’.

God’s name will be written on their foreheads
(Revelation 22:4 ERV)

Just in case anybody wondered whose side they were on.

You wouldn’t have thought there would be ‘sides’, would you? Not in Heaven, surely. Not on God’s Earth. But, sure enough, some of the angels were not at all happy with God for making these new people his ambassadors on Earth. ‘Physicals, doing on Earth what spirituals do in Heaven? We’ll see about that. That’s angels’ work’, they complained.

Now the leader of the angelic rebellion was a right snake, a liar from the start. It tricked two people who were working in God’s apple orchard into thinking that God had short-changed them. Which, of course, he hadn’t. But the damage was done,

Someone who is an enemy did this
(Matthew 13:28 Hart)

and from that time on their ‘God’ icons faded a little every time they had a bad thought or said a harsh word. And worse, there was a risk that they might pass on the damaged tokens to their children, and they in turn to their children, and so on.

God, of course, had a plan to nip this damage in the bud. To every new human ambassador he made, every new baby, he gave a shiny new icon from his box.

And so it was that God gave the yellow-gold T-shaped icon to the fifteen billionth (approximately) human bearer of God’s image. Tristan! He was perfect in God’s eyes, yet, as one poet put it,

I am fearfully and wonderfully made
(Psalm 139:14 NASB)

‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. Or, as his mum wrote, ‘a real Picasso of creation’. For the damage the snake had done in the orchard had worked its way into human DNA, secretly mutating over countless generations, until it showed itself as a bug in Tristan’s genetic code that gave him half a heart and an abstract core anatomy.

But this didn’t get in the way of Tristan having an adventurous life.

I came to give life with joy and abundance
(John 10:10 VOICE)

Life to the full. For nearly three years, Tristan showed everyone who knew him how to do life. He loved every second of it, a happy, chatty boy, full of excitement and fun. For Tristan, each new experience was ‘the best ever’. When God called him home, he left every life he touched blessed with his joy.

A long time ago, another poet observed that good people often die before their time, and suggested that this is God’s way of protecting them from bad times still to come.

The godly often die before their time…
God is protecting them from the evil to come
(Isaiah 57:1 NLT)

Well, if God saved Tristan from bad times, he must have saved him for good ones.

I see him now, in his new rainbow body, proudly wearing his ‘T for Tristan’ icon, sitting on Jesus’ throne

He who wins the victory will sit with me on my throne
(Revelation 3:21 ICB)

with a huge number of children, impossible to count,

There were so many people that no one could count them. They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language of the earth
(Revelation 7:9 ICB)

innocent victims of the snake’s pride. They’re listening to Jesus telling them stories of far off times and places, as he prepares them for the great adventure that he had planned for them long ago.

And when the trumpet is finally blown, and God calls time on the old Heaven and old Earth, there is Tristan at the head of his Team. His ‘Camel’ family is there, and all his friends from Kids Planet, Puddle Ducks, Diddikicks, Healing Little Hearts and Team 1C. Gruffalo and Stick Man each carry sprigs from Tristan’s trees to plant in the New Edens on undreamt of worlds.

On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations
(Revelation 22:2 NLT)

Woody checks that everyone is ready, and Buzz gives the command: ‘Onward and upward!’