Yesterday I noticed this verse: “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the Lord. (Isaiah 65:25) and commented to hubby that it looks like there will be animals in the hereafter.
Children want their pets to be there. I hope for color and creativity. We all look forward to seeing those who have gone before us. This morning I read Phil Callaway’s devotional and he wondered if there would be golf courses there. Maybe every shot a hole-in-one?
The apostle Paul said, “I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” (Philippians 1:23) He knew that God “has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and that, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Yet there are clues, like the verses about lions and lambs and the promise of being with Jesus forever. And at times the longing for such perfections is great. Callaway rightly says that only Jesus Christ can truly satisfy our thirst. He quotes C.S. Lewis: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Along with these writers, I also wonder how God feels when He sees us hanging on so tightly to this life with its short-lived pleasures. Callaway calls them “a gopher-infested golf course with sand greens like the ones I played on as a kid” and how some seem to dread the home Jesus has been creating and how it is “a little like trying to explain the pleasures of driving a Ferrari to a two-year-old who would rather play with a cardboard box.”
I don’t care much if there is golf in heaven. I know there is food and likely that includes chocolate? Maybe pizza? Maybe colors I’ve never seen yet? Will I quilt or draw there? I don’t know.
But I do know this: all that I’ve enjoyed here will not be on my mind when I see Jesus with His arms outstretched to welcome me home. Life with Him will satisfy every desire — forever.
PRAY: Thoughts of heaven are like mental trips to the mountains, or the seashore, or watching a stupendous sunset, or riding an Arab stallion, or painting a masterpiece, or winning a Pulitzer, or watching children at play, or seeing my entire family worshiping You — and You tell me that my heart has not imagined what You have prepared for me. Life here is often an incredible lovely surprise. Heaven will be better? You said it and the joy of knowing that holds me until that day. . . . Amen.
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