Category Archives: Heaven

Believing the Truth

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Yesterday while grocery shopping, I bought a box of succulent strawberries. They were bright red, plump and had deep green “mustaches” that weren’t too big. Tonight, after thinking about those berries all day, I fixed myself a generous bowl-full.

As I cut them up, I wondered how they could travel from sunny Florida to snowy Michigan and look like they’d been picked an hour ago. And then I took my first bite. The berries were sour and nearly tasteless, nothing like what they appeared to be. Even a spoonful of sugar didn’t make them go down very well.

It comes naturally to trust in what we see. Eating sour strawberries has no moral consequence, but the principle of believing that everything we see is reliably true can have devastating results. So how do we know what to do?

We need a measuring stick by which to evaluate the choices we make. I think of Nate and his fatal cancer. Although his health declined radically each day, he never once panicked over his approaching death. He was nervous about his escalating pain but made the choice not to question God’s plan for his life, and death.

I find this extraordinary, but his peaceful demeanor wasn’t just an accident. It was the byproduct of a belief in the truth. He put his terminal prognosis next to the measuring rod of what God said, which was that he’d still be alive after he died physically, and that life would be good.

As we get closer to the Easter season, I’ve been thinking about the famous conversation between Jesus and Pilate shortly before Jesus was killed. Pilate, trying to figure out what the Jewish leaders were so upset about, sought clarification from Jesus. The conversation went something like this:

Pilate: Are you the king of the Jews?
Jesus: Is that what you think?
Pilate: I can’t think like a Jew.
Jesus: My kingdom is not of this world.
Pilate: So you are a king, then?
Jesus: I was born to testify to the truth.
Pilate: But what is truth? 

Just when Pilate was about to get the answer to that critical question, he terminated the conversation, giving the order to kill Jesus. If Pilate had been listening to Jesus’ teachings during preceding months, he would have heard him answer that last question with the words, “I am… the truth.” (John 14:6)

And that’s where the buck stops. Right at Jesus. Nate believed in something, in someone, he couldn’t see, and that knowledge of unshakeable truth gave him a peace unexplainable by human standards. It wasn’t, “Maybe I’ll be ok after I die,” or “I sure hope I’ll be ok.” It was, “I know for sure I’ll be ok.”

Listening to Jesus and living according to biblical truth isn’t easy and almost always goes contrary to our natural instincts, but if we ­­­do it, the end-result will be even sweeter than a bowl of perfect strawberries.

“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone on the side of truth listens to me’.” (John 18:37b)

Surprise Party

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All of you blog readers know I pray for you daily. God seems to supply different requests on different days, and I fully believe as these prayers reach him, he turns around and customizes the answers toward your specific needs. After I write the blog each day, which often takes a couple of hours, I re-read it, which makes me a blog reader, too.

Cyberspace is a strange place. In the last year or more you’ve learned more than you ever wanted to know about me, but I know very little about you. My son-in-law Adam, who shepherds this web site, tells me 317 of you are subscribers, with many more visiting the site each day. I can’t even imagine who you all are, and I don’t have access to a list of your names. (As you subscribe, your privacy is preserved.) You are what I call “cyber-surprises.”

Praying for you has given me two other cyber-surprises:

1. I’ve gained a better understanding of God’s ability to be active in every person’s life every day.

2. Though I don’t have details about the lives he brings to my attention each day, he applies my prayer to them.

It’s a zooming-out and a zooming-in. God is teaching me to think larger than my known world while simultaneously reminding me he’s got one-on-one intimacy with each of us. When I try to make sense of this, smoke comes from my ears, but of one thing I’m sure: your presence at this web site is a thrilling cyber-surprise to me.

Today I thought back to the 42 days of Nate’s cancer. When we were swamped with phone calls, emails and notes from people asking what was happening with him, this blog answered that need. It delivered the requested information without taking us away from Nate. There just wasn’t time to do it any other way.

Sadly, there still isn’t time. No one at my house is terminally ill, but neither you nor I have enough time to meet with or have lengthy conversations with each other. While I was praying for you this morning, feeling frustrated over the one-way-ness of a blog site, God gave me an energizing thought.

In the hereafter, we’ll meet. God is planning a cyber-surprise party for us that he’ll transform into a just-plain-party! And we can celebrate togetherness throughout eternity. You’ve already “met” me, but I’ll get to meet you at the party, and you’ll get to meet the other blog readers. We’ll have the fun of looking into each other’s faces, hearing each other’s voices and chatting about our earthly histories. This will be a blessing the likes of which we can’t yet appreciate, one of the endless goodies God is preparing for us.

By the way, because you already know everything about me, when we get to God’s party, I’ll expect you to do all the talking.

“You are members of God’s family.” (Ephesians 2:19b)

A Sparkling Day

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As the sun rose and hit last night’s snowfall, the neighborhood burst into beautiful sparkles. But by the time Jack and I walked to the beach mid-afternoon, the sun’s warmth had done away with most of the new snow. Nevertheless, I picked up pretty stones on the now-visible sand and was impressed with how many of them sparkled in the sun, some as impressive as geodes.

Then I noticed rows of tiny icicles hanging beneath pieces of driftwood left on the beach by winter storms. In the sun, these glistening beauties were like rows of glass thermometers with light dancing inside.

When we got home, sunshine through my windows was hitting a crystal piece of art my friend Julie had given me, splashing hundreds of bright rainbows all over the room. When I spun it, it was better than a crystal ball on New Year’s Eve!

The sparkling snow, the stones, mini-icicles and glass art all came to life when sunbeams hit them. Although each was attractive in its own right, when sunshine was added, they changed from ordinary to dazzling.

This same comparison can be made between Nate and me. I’m living an ordinary life here in Michigan, sleeping, waking, eating, doing all the everyday things. Nate is leading a life for which no word of description is good enough. Even “dazzling” doesn’t do it. It’s outside of our human thinking.

I studied the mini-rainbows on my walls and floors this afternoon, wondering if there will be rainbows in heaven, and if they’ll be even more spectacular than the ones I was looking at. In addition to the rainbow mentioned in Genesis, there’s also one surrounding God’s heavenly throne, another encircling an angel, and still another around the Lord himself.

I think of Nate in relation to all this sparkling beauty and wonder what he must think. I knew him well after 40 years of marriage and would have had the right answers on a quiz about what he was thinking in any given situation. But now I can’t say.

The one thing I do know is that some day I’ll see these supernatural rainbows, too, and become acquainted with the sunshine of heaven, which we’re told is actually Jesus. My guess is that his light will transform every heavenly thing into sparkles. With all the jeweled walls of the city and crowns of the saints, my afternoon rainbows will be small potatoes compared to how things will shine in glory. And Jesus himself, as the bright light of heaven, will be the sparkliest of all!

This afternoon I came home from the beach with a baggie of pretty beach stones. Will heaven have a beach? I know there’s a sea-like-crystal there, and I’m wondering, will the stones at the water’s edge be genuine jewels? Maybe the sand, too? And will Jesus be standing there? Oh my…

If that’s all true, I know why God keeps the wonders of heaven beyond our imaginations, because trying to picture them now is taking my breath away!

“The Lord their God will save his people on that day… They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.” (Zechariah 9:16)