Tune: ACCLAIM
Here is the full last stanza of this hymn:
“Then we shall be where we would be,
Then we shall be what we should be.
Things that are not now, nor could be,
Soon shall be our own.”
This may sound like a riddle, but it is Kelly’s description of heaven… which has been for centuries misunderstood and elaborated upon. Unlike many hymn writers, he doesn’t describe the place to which believers go; rather he lines out the condition of those who arrive there.
He takes the “would’ve, should’ve, could’ve” quip a bit further into the spiritual realm, saying that we will achieve what we always wanted to be spiritually, we will become what always should have been spiritually, and those things which we have labeled “impossible” in this life will be accomplished.
Kelly calls these (from the previous stanza) our “promised joys with thee.” While seemingly wrapped up in a riddle-esque statement, it is that to which most of us aspire in the next life. If only we could achieve it in this life: be what I would like to be, what I should be – and believe that the impossible can happen.
Wouldn’t that be a taste of heaven?
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