When I was a kid attending Sunday School we sang a song about heaven …
“Heaven is a wonderful place
Filled with glory and grace
I wanna see my Saviours face
Heaven is a wonderful place.
I wanna go there”
But, I can also remember hearing a speaker talk about the excitement of one day going to heaven, then say, “I don’t want to die, I like it here.”
There are times when I understand both perspectives on heaven, the desire to go there as well as the desire to never leave this Earth.
A friend is in the midst of awaiting the joyful news of her mother-in-laws passing into eternity. Now this might just sound like a daughter-in-law who is eager to be freed of her evil M.I.L., but that is not the case at all. This lady is ninety-seven, tired of her decaying physical body, and eager for the home her heart longs for … her heavenly home. My friend purely desires for this dear lady to have her prayers answered, and to sit at the feet of her Savior.
Another is mourning the diagnosis of her good friend … terminal cancer. This woman is my age, with children younger than my own. She is holding onto life here with white knuckle determination. She likes it here.
Then another who told me of a story of her dad having a heart attack and her mom saving his life. When her dad came to in the hospital, he refused to talk to his lifelong partner and wife, for days. It was not until much later that he explained that he resented her … because she brought him back to life. You see he has memories of moving towards a warm and bright light, and a feeling of peace he had not known before or since. He had no thoughts of his life or his loves on Earth, and his longing was to continue toward the light.
Thinking of heaven always brings me back to the book of Revelation :
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said,
“I am making everything new!”
Then he said,
“Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Revelation 21:1-5
The image created in Revelation is of a dream that would be hard to awaken from. To dwell with our God is to have an Eden-like experience. There is “no death or mourning or crying or pain” … as a female, it is difficult to imagine no crying (maybe that is easier for males). It is difficult to imagine no pain.
The reality is that I think our problem is not in thinking about going to heaven, but thinking about leaving Earth.
I believe that once we are there, ‘here’ does not exist in our thoughts … because what we go to, like that man who was traveling towards the light, is what our heart longs for from the moment we are first created.
“Indeed, we groan with this body, desiring to put on our dwelling from heaven …”
2 Corinthians 5:2
itsawonderfilledlife 