We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Willing - literally, 'well content.' Translate, 'to go from our home х ekdeemeesai (G1553)] in the body, and to come to our home [endeemeesai] with the Lord.' We prefer to be found alive at the Lord's coming, and to be clothed upon with our heavenly body (2 Corinthians 5:2-4). But feeling the sojourn in the body to be a separation from our true home "with the Lord," we prefer even dissolution, so that in the intermediate disembodied state we may go to be "with the Lord" (Philippians 1:23). "To depart and be with Christ" (the disembodied state) is distinguished from Christ's coming to take us to be with Him in soul and body (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17). Perhaps the disembodied spirits of believers have full communion with Christ unseen; but not mutual recognition, until clothed with their visible bodies at the resurrection, when they shall recognize Christ's image in each other perfect.