Reflection Roundup has undergone a facelift of sorts, turning toward reporting conversation couched in relationships, boots-on-the-ground and “live from the field” items important to Christian leaders in a  monthly rhythm. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but with which we may not concur. This month’s conversation includes some vital nuggets about heaven that readers will not want to miss.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet  no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecc. 3:11).

This month I experienced my privilege along with several others who have been literal life-long friends. We have loved each other since before many of us were born. God commissioned the prophet Jeremiah saying, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jer. 1:5). We share this same sentiment on a human level, cognizant of its rarity and uniqueness. In this way also, we are the richest people on earth. With great relational privilege comes the responsibility to shoulder one another’s burdens,  and we bear this as a community, often stewarding one another’s questions. Hence, the impetus for this month’s Reflection Roundup. What do we have to look forward to in heaven? How can it possibly get better than this?

It is likely that this question garners visceral responses for the reader—in the mind and possibly even the body—and for different reasons. I ask that you simply hang in there, and tenderly consider the honest possibilities of perspective that lie behind a heartfelt query vulnerably voiced. Part of the privilege of relationship is dwelling with one another in our honest questions, witnessing in the Spirit to one another. Here the Spirit does God’s best work in our hearts and lives, simultaneously enhorting and resurrecting our thoughts (Jn. 16:8-15).

Reflect, for a moment, on what it was like to be a young adult celebrating singleness one moment and then wondering the next where the heck your soulmate is? Vacillating between “Lord come quickly” and “I haven’t even had sex yet!” I remember what it was like to place contingencies before the Lord, things I knew of in this world, but did not yet know (in the biblical sense). What about the successful business person, who has yet to encounter a need they themselves could not address and meet? “Is this not magnificent…which I have built… by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” (Dan. 4:30). If  we have read the story of King Nebuchadnezzar, we know this is dangerous territory, yet our pride continually takes us there if unchecked. 

Here’s why I can’t leave this alone. This week, two polar opposite events took place in my personal circumstances. First, a college student with whom I shared the exploration of the bulk of the New Testament last semester  passed away tragically in a car accident. Second, a young man who has come to mean a great deal to our family, who happens to experience life in a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, stood up in water on his own two feet surrounded by supportive and safe friends. One of these experiences has brought great sadness to all involved, the kind we never want to experience; one brought overwhelmingly deep joy, the kind that causes us to rewind our memories and relive them again and again.  Both situations have their emotional “punch” because this world is incredibly uncomfortable in ways of which we are reminded while walking through these events. Both  point our hearts and minds to when all things will be restored, when this earth and the heavens above it will be made new (Rev. 21:1-4).

We know that everything God made has been waiting now in pain, like a woman ready to give birth. Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God’s promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children, which means our bodies will be made free (Rom. 8:22-23).

This is what we have to look forward to: freedom from death and the parts of our physical selves that feel dead even while we have God’s breath of life.

We’ve each had experiences that connect to a deep place within us. Nature facilitates this, watching the joy bubble up within someone standing  with the assistance of water and a few friends also created this deep connection. Stewarding one another’s faith through our questions creates an eternal bond. These things last and pale in comparison to all the restoration we have to look forward to. Lord, come quickly.

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