I’ve heard it said, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” Ain’t that the truth!
Dear Lord, I don’t want to die! It really irks me that I’m getting older. It seems a giant waste, all this experience that has taken so long to accumulate. Youth is wasted on the young. No offense to the young, whoever you are, we’ve all been there. But I wouldn’t go back to being eighteen again, UNLESS I could somehow compress all the life experiences I’ve had into six months, but then again, those six months would have killed me for sure. It really does take a lifetime to learn how to live. It seems to be a bad system, O Lord, no disrespect intended, spending our lives acquiring very valuable knowledge and skills, just to fade away in the end. The idea of some kind of “eternal rest” actually horrifies me–yeah, I like taking a day off now and then but resting forever sounds like torture. You know I like doing stuff!
Oh Lord, I’ve heard the talk about heaven, streets of gold and pearly gates and all, but I have to tell the truth, I really love this earth you created, and I’ve only had the chance to explore such a little bit of it…. There are hundreds of mountains I’d like to climb, and songs I’d like to hear, and books I’d like to read–old friends I want to hang with, new friends I still need to meet, and a million conversations I want to have. And again, no offense Lord, but I don’t really want to leave this place to go to some place where I’d float around without my body. Yes, there are things I’d gladly change about this body I have, but I still want to keep it! I need it!
So this understanding I’m beginning to have for the first time in my life about heaven and earth becoming one, that our stay in that place we’ve always thought of as heaven is just TEMPORARY, not our eternal “resting place,” just a rest stop until you’re ready for us to come back and live for eternity ON THIS EARTH. And this time we’re going to do it right, the way it was intended from the beginning–well, it just makes me grin to think about it! I’m going to experience a resurrection of this body I’ve become quite comfortable with, just like Jesus was resurrected, a body that will be the same, but different, not subject to wearing out and breaking down, not limited in some of the ways it is now. And I don’t have to keep my dirty little secret anymore, about how I really don’t want to die and go to heaven forever and ever.
Haha, how ironic, Lord, that when Jesus said he came to bring eternal life, he really meant it! How silly that we tried to make it something different. Heaven isn’t a galaxy far, far away, somewhere out there, it’s just another dimension. How silly that we would think that this earth, which you said was very good, was good for nothing but to be thrown on the trash heap.
I should have known you had it all figured out, Lord. And somehow, knowing about this makes me trust you so much more in every other area. It changes everything. I think I’m going to finally give up worrying for good.
Love,
Peri
PS–I’m kinda getting the feeling too, that I’m not the only one who felt that way!