Half of me is in heaven, the Nate-half. Many of my thoughts have followed him there, and my questions seem never to end. It’s encouraging to know the answers will one day come, and in the mean time, I’m trying to keep my ears and eyes open. Just this week I learned something significant.
We all love the verse in Revelation that says, God will wipe away our tears. The same passage tells us he will also do away with sorrow, pain and death. But there’s one thing about this thrilling statement no one ever mentions. Scripture says the wiping away of tears will happen at the time of the new heaven/earth, and that won’t be our dwelling place until the end-times battles are over and Satan has been permanently defeated.
In other words, not yet. So Nate isn’t living in that new heaven but is definitely living with Jesus. It’s probably the place Jesus referred to as “paradise” when he was on the cross. I’m not worried about Nate, but I do wonder, has he been crying?
It’s very possible.
If God is going to wipe away tears, there will have to have been crying first. What would Nate be crying about? He no longer has cancer and has been freed from back pain. He’s living with the Lord, experiencing the ultimate in security and joy. So what would reduce him to tears? I may be off base, but the answer might be “himself.”
Technically I can’t speak for Nate, especially now that his life has been so dramatically altered, but I can speak for myself. When the Lord confronts me with my own mistakes, failures and deliberate sins now, before I’ve gone to paradise, I’m devastated and am often brought to tears. How will it be to have Jesus looking at me while I’m feeling like that? I know I’m eternally forgiven for those things, but I’ll be acutely aware of the lack of righteousness within me. Surely that’ll make me cry.
Scripture says Jesus will be the one to present me to God the Father as completely sinless because of his having taken all the punishment that should have been mine. Without him, I was destined for the God’s dreadful wrath. So, in that interim period between earthly death and the new heaven/earth, between arriving into Christ’s presence and being presented to God, I wonder if my tears will freely flow.
How could I look at the numerous scars my sin inflicted on Jesus, scars from whips, thorns, nails and a sword, and not feel like weeping?
The more I get to know Jesus, the more I’m sure those stinging tears will serve a positive purpose, because he promises to bring good from everything, even pain and sorrow.
So if Nate has been crying in paradise, and if some day I will too, I know it’ll all be for a good reason.
“God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain…” (Revelation 21:4)
I believe that when we die we will be in paradise with Jesus. Scripture says we will be at rest. If we were lamenting about our past I don’t think we would be “at rest”.
Leaving Nate in the arms of Jesus, is to trust that he is in fact, in the arms of Jesus. Fixating on words or meaning of words can cause one to forget that when he removes our mistakes from us as far as the East is from the West – it is remembered against us no more – on earth or in paradise or heaven. Look up. It’s a glorious day. Don’t miss out on today.
You are right on, Margaret. There won’t be lasting tears but there will be some tears and He will wipe them away and then there will be no more. Isn’t He wonderful!
Very thought provoking.
Isn’t “time” an earthly concept? Once we’re freed of the temporal restraints of time and space upon earth, is paradise and the earthly/new Heaven really a “consecutive” concept? Can it not seem to him to be nearly instantaneous and the wiping of the tears still the fresh tears from the separation from those he left on earth, the pain of the (earthly)passage, the shame upon acknowledging our failures?
Margaret, I would encourage you to read “Heaven is for real” by Todd Burpo. It might give you a different view point on this.