Skip to main content

Who Do You Want To See?

 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  (Psalm 73:25-26)

But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” (II Samuel 12:23)

          Some people like to post question on social media like, “Who will be the first person you look for in heaven?” And while I have a list of people I’d like to see, and a bigger list of people I’d like to meet, there are verses like Psalm 73:25-26, which came up as the verse of the day on Biblegateway.com. Part of me looks at the part of me with the list and says, “Hey! Heaven is about God!”

          Most people would probably say, “Well, yeah. Of course, God, but He’s a given who doesn’t need to be mentioned.” They might quote II Samuel 12:23 as their justification. David clearly considered meeting his son in heaven. So it’s OK to look forward to God and the people who have gone before us.

          I agree. But I think the point is that our longing for heaven should be a LONGING FOR GOD and a longing for those who have gone before. If we love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths, we shouldn’t fail to mention Him because He’s a given. He is our first, second, third, and fourth through ninety-nineth reason for heaven. All those who have gone before that we want to be with are reason 100.

            This may be coming to mind in part because I’m starting to wind things down at Hillcrest and starting to think about Erie. Shifting between the two tends to unsettle me. It’s like I’m coming up to New Year’s Day or my birthday and have to set goals for the coming year – but it’s only 6 months long (and only a month between when I get home and when I need to have my goals set for my near year in terms of age.) One of the issues that tends to rear its ugly head when I am preparing for shifts is how much a failure I am in terms of my relationship with God, in terms of my relationship with other people, etc. And, of course, that means troubles with definitions.

            Do I really love God? Do I actually trust Him? Am I being obedient? A song that is coming to mind often lately is Jesus Take Me As I Am. But as much as it seems to be my song at the moment, it doesn’t mean that I -or we – should kick back and make it a command. It’s a plea.

            And so my prayer is that God will reveal Himself in a way that causes me to fall in love with Him, even if I don’t identify it as falling in love, and in a way that causes me to trust Him even if I don’t see it. I long to look at going to heaven as being all about God, and, oh yeah, those other folks, instead of those other folks and oh, yeah, God. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more