At the end of going back and forth of being pernic…
July 21st, 2004 by boon
At the end of going back and forth of being pernicious and being saved, I always get nudged into conversations with myself about the big picture. Mostly, I’m really just curious about what really matters, and not so much about how folks around me are predisposed to their givings, though tempting it is and susceptible I am to be influenced by it. I asked the Lord what his word said. Drawing conclusions from well-to-do friends of mine, I realize that this world does indeed have much to offer. One plane ride from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo followed by a month in the Bahamas and then speeding down the Autobahn and gaping at the Fjords or just being filthy rich can tell you of virtually infinite possibilities with an expected life span of 70 odd years.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume most people have dreams like these of being healthy and wealthy and living the good life… even if it is limited to a walk in the park. So I start to think of all the things intrinsic to our nature that we want to achieve… peace, security, comfort, intimacy, etc. And then I start to think of translating those things into the context of God’s heaven (as far removed from us as it is). I place myself as a common man – Will there be really good sex in heaven? Will there be rows of vending machines where you don’t need coins to get stuff? Or like, really really good restaurants? What about being rich? How does work look like in heaven? Will there be skyscrapers and a bustling metropolis beyond our wildest dreams? Or endless miles of great plains and breathtaking creations of land and sea and wildlife and who knows what?
“Funny” as it is, Jesus never talked about such things. Mostly, he talked about how we’d be with him and God the Father, most clearly in John 14:2-3. Ok, before I begin ranting on in preacher mode…… I’m not. I’m just wanting to be sure about my life. And I’m not doing it for you. Everyone gets to choose, and even that is a gift from God (That’s not to be mistaken that whatever you choose is right, of course). Just that, once in awhile, I come across something like this and it’s hard to pass off as merely ‘inspirational’. And I don’t like that word. I feel they shouldn’t put christian books in that section of the bookstore. But that’s another thing altogether.
I listened to a speaker say once that heaven is a place of ideas. And that’s really an attractive thing. I mean, if you really think about it, it’s all about imagination… and how we come up with these things that blow our minds out. I mean, why surround sound? Why… fast cars? It’s all about the experience, and the experience is all about imagination. About the next new thing. So, maybe that’s *one* thing that can be translated to a spiritual domain. But even Jesus didn’t talk about that.
And then during bible study once we talked about what we were created to be, and about how ‘tending the garden’ in Eden and naming all the animals was like executing our creative power and being master and caregiver over creation. So basically, this was what I believed to be inherent in our nature… that we were made to make new things and be creative and oversee the land and animals and stuff. So, maybe that’s another thing that can be translated to God’s heaven. And Jesus did say that we would reign over the earth with him in the book of Revelation.
So, assuming that these are the two things we’re sure to see in heaven, I immediately make no allowances for other certainties like being rich in heaven. So, I just *don’t* think about good restaurants in heaven, and *don’t* think about really good sex in heaven (not sure whether one *can* be married to a spouse in heaven, anyway… Matthew 22:30) , and so on. Or what I mean to say is that God’s kingdom really is a mystery to us, and what I know of it I just gather clearly from his word. Again,…. like what i said…… I just want to be sure about my life… and that includes my after-life, which has already taken place since 1 Nov 1998, but again, that’s another story.
The most clear point about heaven in the scriptures and even in the lives of believers is that God will be there. No doubt about it. You can’t run away from it. It’s like.. heaven….. no God….. doesn’t jive. So, if you gotta put human beings in heaven… they’ll all be running around with the great presence of their creator… and he won’t be hiding this time. In fact, he’ll probably be most visible there… more visible than I can probably imagine any being can be visible. So, I guess that people who really don’t want God to exist will get their end of the deal.
Then i came (or was led) to the conclusion that truth is something I can’t run away from, so kind of in a “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” way… I don’t have a choice about what heaven is going to be like. Then heaven is just as God said… that we probably might get back to doing what Adam used to do before the whole fruit thing, and that God will be all over the place and that we’ll actually be enjoying a huge part of that (if not all). And I don’t know why some folks need purgatory when we already have the Earth to prepare ourselves for this new kingdom.
I guess this brings a new light to our never ending quest for the better things in life. I don’t even know if such things carry on to the next world. What if I become so transfixed onto some sensual pleasure of being really popular or the perks of corporate luxury life… would they pose to me as so much to lose? And I only have one chance in this lifetime to prepare for the real deal, which makes things even more dramatic. And ‘storing treasures in heaven’ has become too much of a catchphrase…… do we really know what it means?
If we were wiser, we’d realize that God in of himself holds great glory, splendour and majesty… that he is the main attraction. That he’s probably the *only* reason why one would want to be in heaven……. but then……. most of us probably don’t think so (or worse, believe we were right all along). Otherwise we’d be living our lives a lot differently… as some of us are.