PrintMy Desire For Heaven
The old preacher stood before the congregation and asked the question, "Who wants to go to heaven?" Everyone raised their hand; everyone, that is, except that little boy in the very front row. "What's the matter, sonny", said the preacher to the little child, "Don't you want to go to heaven when you die?" The little guy responded, "Oh, you mean when I die. I thought you were getting up a busload to go right now"!!
I think I know how that little guy felt. I most certainly want to go to heaven when I die. But I'm just not real keen on the idea of going right now! My current drama with cancer is making me revisit my values and convictions about heaven, about life beyond the grave, about where my priorities fit in the whole scheme of things.
Some years ago I read a book written by David Watson called "Fear No Evil". David was an Anglican minister from the United Kingdom who was diagnosed with liver cancer. This book is an account of his journey with cancer. I recall in one part of the book he talked about a quantum shift in his perspective and how God brought that about in his life.
As David faced the prospect of leaving behind his wife and children, he recorded how he slowly but surely moved from wanting so much to stay with his family but being willing to go and be with the Lord to the point where he wanted so much to be with the Lord but being willing to stay here on earth.
The Apostle Paul expressed a similar struggle when he wrote,
For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better. Yet if I live, that means fruitful service for Christ. I really don't know which is better. I'm torn between two desires: Sometimes I want to live, and sometimes I long to go and be with Christ. That would be far better for me, but it is better for you that I live. (Phil 1:21-24 NLT)
I must confess that, at this point in time, I don't have such a struggle. I simply don't want to go to heaven…..at least, not yet!! My own mindset is that I want to be here with my wife and children and grandchildren. However, I have no doubt that the day will come when I, too, will make that quantum shift.
Meantime I do need to be spending more time focusing on the fact that this world was only ever meant to be temporary by nature. As Paul points out in that same letter to the believers at Philippi
But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Saviour. He will take these weak mortal bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same mighty power that he will use to conquer everything, everywhere. (Phil 3:20-21 NLT)
Here I live in an earthly body which is likened to a tent – temporary accommodation (2 Cor.5/1-5) - while God is preparing for me an eternal house.
The hymn writer captured this sense of the temporary, the sense of pilgrimage so well in the first verse.
"Forever with the Lord!"
Amen, so let it be!
Life from His death is in that word
'Tis immortality.
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home
"A day's march nearer home". What a perspective! To be able to say at the close of each and every day that we are 24 hours closer to our final destination.
