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Yesterday I was trying to say why I don't preach or write too much about heaven, as if it were the inevitable next place on the human ladder which seems to be generally believed. I've thought of some more reasons. One is I get alarmed when people speak about heaven as if it were earth all over again, but without the pain or the growing old. I get even more alarmed when I hear glib young things announcing that in the spirit world, at the end of that tunnel, there is a kind of ghostly existence in which everyone is in neutral and all else forgotten. Even Hitler would be at home there.
Another thing that bothers me is that some popular ideas of heaven seem to me to be so boring - so dull. You know, like sitting on a cloud playing a harp, or singing in a vast choir whether you like music or not, or, as it was inscribed on an ancient grave stone: "Don't grieve for me now - grieve for me never - I've gone to do nothing for ever and ever." To me, that's a description of hell, not heaven!
You'll gather from all this that I don't know enough about it to give simple answers to such questions as "Where is heaven?", "What's it like?", "What do we do for all eternity?". Oh yes, I know it's real all right. Jesus lived it and preached it and that's good enough for me, so I'm utterly convinced of the reality of heaven and hell; but although I'm sure I have received what the Bible calls the gift of eternal life by putting my faith in Jesus Christ and in what he did for me on the cross, I shrink back from claiming too much knowledge about living in blazing holiness, transfixed by glory, moving faster than light, surrounded by rapturous music, sharing in God's on-going creation, energized by the Holy Spirit - the image of Jesus formed in me: now unhampered, set free to be what God meant me to be - joy unspeakable .... I guess it's all too vast a canvas for my little box of paints.
Listen to verses from Isaiah Chapter 64, as quoted by Paul :
However, as it is written in I Corinthians 2:9-10:
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
A Prayer:
Since the glory of heaven is beyond my little mind to grasp, O Lord, grant me the living hope that you have a future for me and the humility not to expect more than my capacity for you.
Now read Matthew 18:1-14
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