Heaven Beyond Earth

Living near a major tourist destination I spend a lot of time navigating narrow streets full of tourists, people posing for selfies in front of cathedrals and monuments while I’m just trying to go about my day. As I look at people dragging suitcases along uneven pavements I often ask myself, why do they do it? Maybe it’s just me projecting my own tiredness, but quite frankly it all looks exhausting. My favourite holiday activities are lying on a sun lounger, swimming in the ocean, eating good food, and reading a good book. More than anything I just love to rest, read, write and reflect. 

But yet people love to travel, and go on journeys that can be tiring and stressful, and yet they do it all for moments of joy.  Maybe it is all worth the struggle to stand in awe at a cathedral that took 72 years to build, taste world champion gelato, look at artistic masterpieces, and take an evening stroll across an old bridge with the street lights reflected on the water.  

We go to great efforts to experience moments of pure joy, to find heaven on earth. The other day I was thinking about that Belinda Carlisle song, ‘heaven is a place on earth,’ and how we humans are seekers, seeking moments of pleasure, moments of joy, those moments that feel heavenly, even if the in-between moments can also feel hard, stressful, or downright miserable at times. 

In many spiritual belief systems there is the idea of living in the present moment, and while there’s some truth in not letting life pass us by, and being still and slow to notice things, I’ve come to realise that looking forward to heaven is a wonderful thing. 

Every time I feel the warm sun on my legs or eat a freshly picked home-grown strawberry or go swimming with my daughter, or talk non-stop with a good friend then I think to myself if this feels this good then how much more wonderful will heaven be?

The enemy tells us that the moment is all we have, that this life on earth is all there is, that we need to find our joy, and happiness right now, and that that’s the key. But I’m finding my joy in looking forward, in knowing in the hard and difficult moments, that one day it will be all over, and I’ll be in  heaven. A heaven more wonderful than all the highs of exotic beaches, and moments of pleasurable ecstasy. 

It’s a lie that we need to gather together as many pleasurable moments as we can, instead we find our happiness in turning to Jesus, in following him to the place that has been prepared for all believers in heaven, in a house with many rooms, one for everyone who makes a decision to find the deeper pleasure that lies beyond this world of amusement parks, and trips of a lifetime. 

While a month in Sicily sounds divine, I let the envy drift away from me when others tell me about their holiday plans. Because I know I’m booked for the trip of all eternity, and my room is reserved.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. - Phillipians 4.19 

 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” John 6:51