For Heaven’s Sake

“To die would be an awfully great adventure” – Peter Pan

I sat at the bedside of a dying woman that day. She had asked for a pastor to come to see her, and knew her time was at an end. After a few pleasantries, I asked her what she wanted to talk about.

Mostly, she wanted to talk about her regrets.

She was sorry she’d wasted so much time. Sad about things she hadn’t done, but just as sad for a few things she had done. Though she trusted in Jesus, she was focused with a lifetime of missed opportunities.

As I listened, I felt more like a priest hearing a confession than a pastor. Stumbling around for how to respond, I felt God prompting me, “Tell her the best part. Tell her what I’ve got planned for her!”

So, I did something I rarely do when counseling people. I changed the subject. I pivoted from her regrets to the place where she’d soon be arriving – heaven.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking.

“You were trying to calm her fears with fairy tales. Say anything just to give the old girl some peace, right pastor?

Wrong. You see, I don’t believe Heaven’s just wishful thinking. I believe it’s more real than the world we now inhabit. And I believe heaven is logical. In fact, it’s the only logical response to a world out of control and filled with injustice. Without heaven, that dear lady’s whole life amounts to little more than those regrets she was fixated on.

If there’s no heaven, a million wrongs will never be made right.

If there’s no heaven, the powerful have won and the meek inherit nothing. Might truly makes right, because there’s no one eternal courtroom to judge and punish the bullies of this world.

If there’s no heaven, countless children enduring endless days of abuse and dying at the hands of ruthless adults will never know the loving protection of a “good Father”.

If there’s no heaven, all our existence is pointless, meaningless. Because then, once your dead, there’s nothing. And everyone you’ve ever tried to help will eventually die as well. So if the end is nothingness, why save a life? You’re just prolonging the inevitable. No good we do will ever live past the next couple of generations.

No, heaven’s not a fairy tale. But what most of what nonbelievers say on the subject of death is where you’ll really find the wishful thinking!

“Grandma will live on in our hearts”.

“At least they’re at peace now”.

Sorry, but I don’t want to just “live on in someone’s heart”. I won’t REALLY be there, will I? That’s just bad poetry, like an existential Hallmark card. We’re either truly alive or we’re dead. The “memory of me” and the “real me” are two completely different things. And if all that’s left is a memory living on in people who’ll soon die as well, what’s the point?

If death means we no longer exist, how can anyone truly “be at peace” with that idea, unless they’re in denial?

But…what if the reason we can’t imagine no longer existing is because we know instinctively there’s more to a person than just the material? What if we know there’s something more that must live on somewhere? And what if everything in this life were merely the “boot camp” for the real adventure to come?

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11

Nothing in this life is complete without heaven, so much so that God has “put it in our hearts”.

I love the way C.S. Lewis encouraged a sick friend as he himself faced death:

“Thing of yourself just as a seed patiently waiting in the earth; waiting to come up a flower in the gardener’s good time, up into the real world, a real awakening. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half-waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming. It is nearer now than when I began this letter.”^⁠1

Imagine that! A world more vivid and dynamic than this present one. A world so wonderful it would make any regrets about this world seem insignificant.

This life is not the end, only the beginning. That’s why I shared heaven with this woman full of regrets, because her adventures we truly just beginning, not ending.

What we were created for is a yet undiscovered country as Shakespeare put it, where we’ll finally see with our eyes the things for which our hearts always yearned. Things for which we hoped that seemed so wonderful, we dared not expect them for fear of being fools.

Few answers we seek are found in this life. Most things that really matter are not answered until the next…

Pray for healing now…but healing here will eventually vanish. Why?

Because eternal healing doesn’t come in this world, but the next.

Pray for goodness now…but complete holiness will evade us here. Why?

Because we’ll never be completely like Jesus in this world, but only when we see Him face to face in the next.

Pray for justice now…but justice will often go unserved here. Why?

Because only God can right all the wrongs and repay justly. Only He is a worthy Judge.

But in the hereafter, we’ll find the “endless summer” we lost as children. Remember playing outside as a child, losing all sense of time? Only the streetlights flashing on reminded us to go home. But in that land of endless day, we’ll play in a sunlight that will never set. And we’ll never need to run home, become home is where we’ll be.

“There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.” – Rev. 22:5

And the wonders of heaven will hit us like a sugar rush from a trip to the ice cream truck on a hot summer day.

My friend died within 5 days of our conversation. It’s still hard to image how someone you just spoke with can be gone so suddenly. But today, I know she’s only “gone” from this earth. She never stopped existing, only breathing.

Right now, she’s in heaven. The streets she’s walking are somewhat similar to the one she’s left behind. Except in this new world for which we were created, the colors themselves are so brilliant that the beauty around her brings tears.

Today, she is Dorothy just after her house touches down in Oz. She left this earth behind, just like Dorothy walked out of Aunt Em’s sepia-toned house. In death, she opened the door to a Technicolor world of delight. And standing amidst the wonder of it all, she is a child once again.

In fact in heaven, we’ll all be children again. We’ve never truly felt comfortable in the self-confident trappings of adulthood anyway. Our faces and bodies have changed over the year, but strangers stare back at us from the mirror.

But inside, we’re still only 7. That intuition is actually wisdom. Because no matter how old we are, we’re still just children compared to God.

Now reunited with our Father, we’ll be held and loved and treasured and thrown into the air again in delight. We’ll be perfectly and fully loved by the One who sacrificed everything to bring us back home. All who’re in Him will be safe, and perfect, and whole, and wise…yet see all things anew with the wonder of a child’s eyes.

We’ll finally look into the face of the One who made us. At that moment, every longing of our monotonous, dreary, world-weary existence will be satisfied in His countenance.

And in the reflection of His eyes we’ll see ourselves laughing…no, even giggling with joy.

And that joy will last forever and ever, world without end…

Amen.