Heaven Anyone?

Now that I've finished off the Hunger Games Trilogy, it's time to get a little more serious with my reading once again... something that my new "evening" allows me plenty of time for. It's been awhile since I read a book with a friend but over Christmas my South Carolina friend, Sarah Ashlin, and I decided to do just that. And we aren't letting the 1,000+  mile distance stop us. I think I suggested the idea to read together and SA suggested the book (probably b/c she already had a head start on me). So, we are reading Heaven by Randy Alcorn.

Now, I must admit that while I was excited about reading a book with a friend and having a phone date to chat about our thoughts every couple of weeks, I just wasn't too excited about the book itself. I mean, I don't spend that much time thinking about Heaven... b/c honestly I'm not really all that interested in it. (Shocking, I know.) I guess I've always just felt like, while it's great that I'm eventually going to be going to Heaven and all (especially considering the alternative...), the Here and Now is what really consumes me. And since it's probably the same for most everyone else, why not just focus on the reality of what a relationship with God is like now instead of trying to imagine some distant otherworldly future? It's going to be good, but beyond that I've never really been very concerned.

But then I started reading the book...

And the first two chapters have convinced me that Heaven is actually pretty interesting - contrary to what most people seem to think about floating around singing hymns and playing harps and not recognizing anyone from Earth.  Apparently, these misconceptions don't come from Scripture anyway. Not only that, but we are commanded in Colossians 3:1-2 to "set (our) hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. (To) set (our) minds on things above, not on earthly things." Not to get all hermeneutical on you here, but according to Alcorn the Greek word translated "set your hearts on" refers to a diligent, active, ongoing, single-minded investigation. And now I'll just go ahead and quote a paragraph that I've underlined in the book:

The command, and its restatement, implies there is nothing automatic about setting our minds on Heaven. In fact, most commands assume a resistance to obeying them, which sets up the neccessity for the command. We are told to avoid sexual immorality because it is our tendency. We are not told to avoid jumping off buildings because normally we don't battle such a temptation. The command to think about Heaven is under attack in a hundred different ways every day. Everything militates against it. Our minds are so much set on Earth that we are unaccustomed to heavenly thinking. So we must work at it.

I'm sure the good old phrase about someone being "so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good" has already come to mind here. But perhaps the opposite could actually be the truer statement: Maybe we are often of such little earthly good precisely b/c we think of heavenly things too little. 

One of my favorite authors, John Eldredge, suggests that our desires were given to us by God b/c we are made in His image. Our frustrations (however big or small) with ourselves, those around us and the world as we know it, stem from the very fact that God created us for more, for His reality. He gave us the desire for perfection and beauty and health and orderliness and happiness and love and connection and peace and unity and life and strength. But instead we see imperfections, ugliness, diseases of every kind, chaos, depression, hatred, loneliness, war, death, and weakness all around us and it is disheartening/disappointing/dissatisfying (dis-everything!). To say the least.

But there is a reason why it is so hard to look past what we can see with our physical eyes and focus on the object of our true God-given desires. The reason is this:

There is a lying, deceptive, jealous, and resentful Satan who has tricked  us into thinking that while Heaven may exist, it's not really going to be a very fun place and we shouldn't waste our time thinking or worrying about what it's going to be like. What's more, he's persuaded us that what we see here on Earth is the only reality. He's blinded us to the fact that things are not as they should be. To quote the book again,

We're prone to deny the great realities of God and Heaven, which we can no longer see because of the Curse... Sitting here in a dark world, we must remind ourselves what Scripture tells us about Heaven. We will one day be delivered from the blindness that separates us from the real world... If you're a Christian suffering with great pain and losses, Jesus says, " Be of good cheer" (John 16:33, NKJV). The new house is nearly ready for you. Moving day is coming. The dark winter is about to be magically transformed into spring. One day soon you will be home- for the first time.

Those are some pretty awesome promises. 

Maybe you are like me, though. I don't feel like I'm really suffering with great pain or loss right now. I enjoy my life here on Earth aside from some pretty petty frustrations and worries. I've always thought I want to enjoy it here a while longer before having to go to Heaven. But I'm realizing, maybe that is the most dangerous state of mind to be in! Maybe Satan has already achieved his ultimate goal with this mindset! I have become satisfied with far too little. I don't know about you, but I don't really like the idea of someone tricking me, persuading me, blinding me to reality. In fact, it makes me pretty mad. And it really makes me want to find out what he's been trying to hide and why he's been trying to hide it.