Okay so...heaven. It's real. Now that we have that settled, can anyone relate when I say I get overwhelmed when I think about it?
If you know me at all, you know I over think EVERYTHING. And I truly mean everything. On a side note; I'm about to lose my patience with the "k" key on my keyboard...so if there are "k"s missing randomly from words you know why. Back to what I was saying...
I remember lying awake at night when I was 10 or 11 just thinking about time...and how there won't be time in heaven. Well... what are we supposed to do forever? What am I supposed to do without time? And honestly at this point in my life, I can't even fathom that there may be a time when I won't need my planner. I would cry to my mom about how I just didn't now if I can handle forever...just honest thoughts of a preteen. But honestly I still feel like that sometimes. As Christians that's what we are supposed to be looking forward to, but at times I find myself grasping this life a little tighter because the idea of heaven is just too much and I guess there is this looming fear that it may not be as good as it sounds. I know that doubting heaven's, for a lack of a better word, awesomeness is super not cool, but I refuse to believe that every Christian hasn't had that thought at some point in their life. But I know heaven is better. I know it's best...because I trust God.
As I was approaching graduation last year, I found myself praying more and more for a desire for heaven. And as I was struggling to understand the pattern society says I am supposed to follow and live by, I truly understand that there's no way this can be our home. My last week of school I was driving to an interview, and so of course I spent the whole 2 hour drive over-analyzing my life to the point of panic. I was just feeling a little overwhelmed with all the unknowns and expectations that I felt were being placed on me, but I also kept asking "why?" Why is this how things work? Why do we go to school for what feels like 100 years then spend the rest of our lives working to pay bills and then maybe have some left over for something fun on the weekend? WHY?! Well unfortunately, I don't quite have a good answer for that one, other than that's the society I was born into, but I also realized as I was struggling to understand that concept that the reason it was so foreign to me is because as a Christian, this is not my home.
I will gladly become a healthy, functioning member of society as I seek to follow the Lord in whatever capacity, but THIS IS NOT IT. The reason my heart doesn't feel satisfied thinking about "growing up" is because those things aren't meant to make me feel fulfilled and praise be to God that He doesn't let those things satisfy us because we would never find Him on our own.
Many of the awesome pastors and people who I have been blessed to learn from lately have really caught my attention with some of the new and fresh perspectives they can offer on heaven. The young adults ministry I attend in Dallas recently went through a dating series, and one of the statements the pastor made was (maybe not in these exact words) "some of you are like, 'I want Jesus, a husband, and donuts.'" And all of us women in the congregation agreed with him. That's most likely something that has come out of my mouth before in a conversation...I can definitely say that, "I want donuts," is one of my most frequently used sentences, but he went on to say "when did heaven stop being good enough?" You may get so many awesome things here on earth, but if you don't, so what? You get heaven! You get Jesus! That was a slap in the face for some of us. How dare we desire anything but that.
Then again this past Sunday, the pastor at my home church continued preaching through Philippians. Of course, in comparison to Paul we always feel super lame, but then he pulls a Paul and encourages the heck out of us. Anyway, I guess for some reason or another I had never heard the fact that Paul got a glimpse of heaven. I believe this is inferred from Paul's statements in 2 Corinthians 12. As I began thinking about it, it made sense. The reason Paul said that dying would be gain is because he understood what eternity with Jesus is compared to this life. With a better understanding of the life to come, this one becomes so irrelevant yet so much more vital as we seek to make sure as many people as possible know that THIS IS NOT IT and THERE IS MORE, and THAT 'MORE' is JESUS.
And in the most recent installment of my thoughts on heaven, today I as I was driving I saw this awesome cloud covering the sun and all the rays were exploding from the edges of the cloud. It caught me off guard and blinded me a bit as I saw it, and I could not help but think of Christ returning. Then...GET THIS. I actually had this thought for a split second; "I should turn the radio down because I may not be able to hear the trumpet..." I don't know if I just had a dumb moment (which is very likely) or if it was just a reflection of my small view of God. Like as if I'd have to say, "Umm...God, could you sound the trumpet again? My music was way too loud. I couldn't hear it..."
That may be quite possibly the worst way to end this blog post so let me close by saying this;
He is far greater. Rest in that. We may not understand eternity or even our lives today, but everyday and for the rest of eternity WE GET JESUS.
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