a thought about heaven

I was walking down a path, enjoying the solitude, when I heard a rustling behind me and thought, "There's someone following...". I went on a few steps, uneasy, then turned around.

There was no one there. The rustling I heard was the wind running its fingers through the leaves of an oak, shaking brown leaves from among the green so that they fell slanting like rain.

It was one of those moments when you catch your breath and think, "If the earth can be this lovely, what will heaven be like?".

Where moments like this await us around every corner. Where each moment is free from even a hint of sorrow or fear. Where they slide into each other, moment after sunblown moment, until the years become one long story of joy.

image is by -Reji on flickr.com

we were made for this

Christine Hoover:

Life is a difficult hike, isn't it? Sometimes the path is smooth and we're bouncing merrily along, but most of the time it's slippery and treacherous, and we wonder if it will all be worth it in the end.

We've heard of what's to come, and we're told the views will be glorious, but we haven't seen it for ourselves and it's difficult to imagine.

All we see are the things in front of us: the trees, the stumbling blocks, the gnats flying around our face. And we feel things too: the pain, the exertion, the complaints rising up in us. It's a matter of faith that the views are ahead and a matter of endurance, and no one can do the work for us.

We were made for this--for faith. We were made to hope that the end and the views are a reality and to anticipate what we'll find at the top.

So let's keep walking, keep pushing, keep believing. Because these light and momentary afflictions will give way to rest and warmth and joy. They will give way to Him. Where we once could only imagine and hope, we will see clearly.

And we will look back at the trail on which we've come and, with great satisfaction, know that it was worth it in the end.

Read the rest here.

God’s gifts in suffering (8) Suffering teaches us to number our days

All our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away…
So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Ps 90:9-10, 12)

When you’re young, life seems long and full of promise. A young woman told me she hopes Jesus doesn’t come back till she’s experienced career, marriage, children. I remember thinking the same when I was eighteen. Life stretched ahead, and I wanted to see and do it all. Can you recall it? Standing at the brink, ready to plunge in?

As you get older, life sometimes seems very sharp and short. Family members become ill. Friends get divorced. Parents age. We go to more funerals. We grow weary of the long battle with sin. On the bad days, when another burden is added, we wonder if we can bear any more. The years that once seemed endless now speed past, and they are often full of pain.

Who is to say that we do not now see things more clearly? Like a flower of the field, we flourish and are quickly gone (Psalm 103:15-16). Life is vanity; it passes like a shadow; generations comes and go, and we are forgotten (Ecc 1:1-4; 6:12). Our days are filled with toil and trouble; they are soon ended, and we fly away (Psalm 90:10).

One of the great blessings of suffering – though perhaps not the most welcome – is that we come to see this more clearly. We’d rather be comfortable in this world, but suffering, mercifully, doesn’t allow it. We share this world’s groaning, and realize what has been clear to most people throughout history. Our hearts as well as our heads now know the truth: in the light of eternity, this life is a blip and a shadow.

This whispers to us of another truth: we are not made for this world. If we were, CS Lewis asked, would we not feel at home?1 Yet we don’t, except perhaps on the most sunshiny days, and even then we are haunted by incompleteness. Always, there is the longing for something more. We feel this acutely, for God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc 3:11).

Suffering fuels this longing. It takes us by the hand and says, “Look! There is something better!”. We hold so tightly to this world, but suffering loosens our grip. It reminds us that we’d better not store our treasures here, for they can and will be taken from us. It weans us from this life, and sets our hope on the life to come. And this hope will not disappoint us (Rom 5:5). We will open our eyes on a new creation. The morning is coming.

Have you seen it? Can you picture it? There it is: a golden city, so bright it would hurt your eyes if they, like the rest of your body, weren’t strong and new (Phil 3:21). In the heart of this city, God and the Lamb – the one we love, the one who died for us – sit on the throne. A river runs from the throne, its waters giving life. And look! There’s the tree of life, heavy with new fruit each month, its leaves healing hurts (Rev 22:1-5). Once more, God walks with us in the cool of the day; and this time we have no need to hide (Gen 3:8). Seeing him with open faces, we are at last like him (1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2). Here there is no hint of sorrow, no mark of pain:

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Rev 21:3-4).

It’s better than we knew it could be. We are home.

I read the words, “There will be no more tears…”, and tears run down my face. For this is our waiting time, our season of groaning, our period of exile (Rom 8:18-27; Phil 3:20; 1 Pet 2:11). We long for the day of Christ’s appearing (2 Tim 4:8). We yearn for our true country (Heb 11:16). We seek the things that are above (Col 3:1-4).

The other day, I was standing at the kitchen bench, cutting vegetables, when I noticed my hands were trembling. It was one of those times when the weight of a long struggle presses down, and you know your strength is not enough to carry you. In that moment, as he has so often before, the Spirit brought these verses to mind:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor 4:16-18)

If there’s one thing suffering has taught me, it’s that we don’t really belong here. It has taught me to fix my eyes on the unseen. It has taught me to long and live for our true home.

Come, Lord Jesus. (Rev 22:20)


1. “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” CS Lewis, Mere Christianity ↩

When God Weeps - part 3 - the "how" of suffering

I have a friend who suffers from chronic pain. She's had it most of her life, since an accident as a teenager. Of all the books she's read on suffering, the one she loves most is Joni Eareckson Tada and Stephen Estes' When God Weeps.

There's no higher recommendation than that!

Now that I've finished, what do I think of When God Weeps? I can't imagine a better book to give those who are in the middle of suffering, once they have reached a point where they are able to reflect on things again.

My friend and I agree that the best thing about When God Weeps is the way it moves between the theological and the experiential. It helps that it's written by Joni, deeply experienced in long-term suffering; and Stephen Estes, a capable theologian. Both write with great sympathy and with a colourful, lively style, and Estes writes with clear logic.

I don't agree with every sentence. I'm a bit hesitant about statements like this - "God may not initiate all our trials - but by the time they reach us, they are his will for us" (does this really express God's absolute sovereignty in all things?) - but I appreciate the tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility that Estes is trying to uphold. And he does say, "No trial reaches us apart from God's explicit decree". So my hesitations are slight.

It was an absolute treat reading the third and final section. It's called "How can I hang on?", and it's about how to suffer well. There are four chapters, sometimes surprising in their content:

• Cry of the soul - Wise words about anger at God, how it can lead to bitterness, and where it really belongs: in honest expression to God, so that it moves us, not away from him, but towards him. Here we may not find answers, but we will find his comforting arms.
• Gaining contentment - I like Joni's "arithmetic of contentment": when we suffer, we subtract our wants so our desires equal our circumstances, and gain what is of far greater value: Christ's sufficiency in our need, the joy of knowing God, and the advancement of his kingdom.
• Suffering gone malignant - I wasn't expecting a chapter on hell in a book on suffering, yet it really does belong here. Estes reminds us why hell is necessary, because it's God's answer to both terrible injustice and the evil at the heart of "good" people. It also explains why Christians suffer, because "hell's splashover" prepares us for eternity and moves us to reach out to others.
• Suffering Gone - This was perhaps the highlight of the book for me. Every word spoke to my need. In suffering we need a future perspective (so hard when pain is present!). We need to remember that heaven is a Person, not just a place, that it is so much more than we can imagine, and that the way we bear suffering now will win us a rich reward in eternity. 

By the end of When God Weeps I was in tears. A bit embarrassing since I was in public at the time!

We will all suffer, so we all need books like When God Weeps. I recommend it highly, both for those who haven't suffered greatly yet and for those who are suffering.

God’s gifts in suffering (3) suffering tests and refines our faith

In this [living hope] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

I’m no Job. The words I used to sing so blithely, with such theoretical appreciation of their beauty, such bland conviction that I’d sing them whatever came – “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21)1 – don’t, apparently, spring to my lips when suffering comes. My lips are sealed, silent.

And that’s the first thing suffering teaches me about myself: my faith is weaker than I knew. I am riddled with doubt. I am shot through with unbelief. My trust in God is fragile.

When I was young, I thought of myself as strong. I would never lose my faith! I would never stumble! My obedience was sure, my faith certain. Life, at times, has felt like a successive stripping away of self-delusion. Tempt me, and I am prone to habitual sin. Test me, and I am prone to anger. Try me, and I am prone to unbelief.

Suffering brings me low, which is exactly where I need to be:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:17)

Suffering undoes me. It unravels the pride and self-reliance that were woven together with my faith. What’s left is alarmingly slender, so it’s just as well that it’s God, not me, who holds me here. Faith hangs by a thread; yet it holds, tested and true, stronger than spider silk, for the One to whom it clings is faithful. When I am weak, God proves to be strong; and, seeing this, my faith grows stronger.

Suffering refines my faith. It becomes more resilient, less dependent on circumstances. I come one step closer to believing in God as he really is, not as I want him to be. I long for heaven, and the ties that bind me to this earth are loosened.

It’s true: suffering both tests and refines my faith. I’ll write more about the second of these in the weeks to come.


1. The song being Matt Redman’s Blessed be the name of the Lord.

words of encouragement from a 6 year old

"I just can't wait! We don't fear death. Others do, but we don't."

- Thomas, 6, talking about heaven.

CS Lewis on longing

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

CS Lewis A Mind Awake

image is from stock.xchng

busyness, burnout and the grace of God (3b) time and eternity

This post continues from last week's post on busyness and time.

What I'm learning.*
See last week's post for points 1-5.

8. My life is like the grass that the wind blows away (Ps 103:15-16)...
This has been a humbling realisation for me. I'm ashamed to admit that part of me longs to do something of such significance for God that I'll be remembered after I die. What an empty goal, and how unlikely! Most of us won't be remembered beyond a couple of generations - if that! - and this is the way it should be. My life is short and soon over. It's God's name, not mine, that will be remembered, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

9. ... but eternity is forever.
Why try to pack everything into this life when I have eternity in store? Why live for this fragile, fleeting life rather than eternity? I'm finite, I'm human, and I can't have every experience, realise every potential, use every gift, or fulfil every dream during this life, whatever the world tells me! I have eternity ahead of me to enjoy these things (and I'm not going to care if I don't do everything I've ever dreamed of in heaven - I'll have better things to do!). I want to spend this life serving Jesus and living for eternity, rather than running around trying to fit everything in now.*

6. There is grace in waiting ...
I want everything now, but God often calls me to wait. It's not a virtue we're very good in these days of instant everything! But as I wait, refusing to give in to self-pity and impatience, I practise quiet trust in God's wisdom and provision. I want things now: but God teaches me to wait on him and trust him to bring good things in his own time and in his own way. God is good, and his timing is perfect.**

7. ... and now may be a time for waiting.
My life is finite, and I can't do everything I'd like to do - although, like a child in a lolly shop, I'd like to be able to taste everything now! Now may not be the time for many of the opportunities I'm given. Now is often a time for saying "no", and focusing on things of first importance, like caring for the people God has given me to love. There'll be time for other ministries later on - or perhaps not. That's in God's hands! In the meantime, I'm learning to weigh up the choices, to make wise decisions, to pace myself, and to be patient, knowing that during this life, God will give me enough time to do the work he wants me to do.

10. My significance doesn't come from my life's story, but from being part of God's story.
My life on earth is short and my story is quickly over. Only God lasts forever. The story that matters is the story of his Son. If my life has significance, it's not from doing great things, but from being caught up in God's bigger story. I'm a mum, and that means serving Jesus in a small, unseen sphere. For others, serving Jesus means going to work every day, caring for a sick husband, or staying faithful in singleness. As I serve Jesus faithfully, even if no-one ever sees, I'm doing work that will last and playing my part in God's bigger story.*

*These insights come from Tim Chester The Busy Christian's Guide to Busyness chapter 12. So this post is really an extended meditation on Chester's book, which I found profoundly helpful as I reflected on the topic of time.
*Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity has taught me a lot about the blessedness of waiting.

images are by aussiegall, Theorris, m4r00n3d and Carlos Porto at flickr

overheard conversation

Tommy (6) - Andy, do you want to go to heaven?

Andy (3) - Yeah.

Tommy - Then you have to do two things. You have to believe in Jesus, and you have to die. Do you believe in Jesus?

Andy - Yeah!

Tommy - Then you have to die. You die by keeping on bashing into things and crashing into stuff and falling from a long way and stuff like that.

Andy - I don't die yet!

Tommy - And if you don't believe in Jesus you go to hell and you have the baddest day ever.

Ben (9, giving the correct theological explanation) - It's not really a day, Tommy. It's the second death. First you die, and then you die again. It's eternity, not a day.

Andy - I do die. Everybody dies.

Tommy - Heaven is the funnest place ever.

Andy - Yeah.

C.S.Lewis on heaven

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. … It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all. … All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.

Quote is from C.S.Lewis, The Problem of Pain; image is from stock.xchng.

enjoying God (4) how much joy can I have now?

It's an odd in-between time we live in.

When Jesus died on the cross, he dealt the death-blow to sorrow, sin and Satan. But we wait for the day when Jesus' victory is complete, and sorrow, sin and Satan are no more.

This has huge implications for our experience of joy during this life.

The word enjoyment can be used in two ways: to possess or have a right to something, or to feel delight in something.* In the first sense, our enjoyment of God is already complete. In the second sense, it won't be complete until heaven.

We already enjoy, or possess, "every spiritual blessing in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). We're as intimate with God as we will ever be. We're at peace with God. We're righteous in his sight. We can walk straight into God's presence. Heaven is our country. (Rom. 5:1-11; 8; Eph. 1:3-14; 2:6-7; Hebrews 10:19-23)

We don't have to jump through any spiritual hoops to union with Christ. There's no "first class" in the Christian life, no special kind of Christian with more significant experiences of God. We can’t “come into God’s presence”, “draw near to God”, or “get closer to God” - we're already there.

Enjoyment of God is already ours.

But we don't always feel delight, for we wait for fullness of joy. Joy during this life is interrupted and imperfect. At times, we may feel no conscious enjoyment of God at all. Joy is interrupted by depression, doubt, and discouragement. It's disturbed by sin, sickness, and sorrow.

We look forward to the day when we will see God face to face. On that day, we will finally be like him, for we will see him as he is. We will stand with thousands upon thousands before his throne, praising him. He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Joy will be our all.

We shouldn't expect uninterrupted enjoyment of God now, but we long and look forward to it. We taste its first fruits. Even now we "rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory" (1 Pet. 1:8).

Joy is ours, and joy yet to come.

*See definition of enjoyment in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

Image is from stock.xchng.

trees

What is your heart given to? The beach? The mountains? The city?

For me it will always be trees: marching rows of golden poplars, bare black branches of ancient elms across the wintry sky, drops of water suspended from the bending twigs of humble garden trees, the yellow mourning veil shrouding the boughs of weeping willows, the blue-green and silvery-grey of the slender gums.

The fairy wonderland of leaves drifting from trees planted in green grass. The sting of cold air on my face, the glop and gurgle of the river, and the rustle of damp leaves beneath my feet.

It was when I was happiest that I longed most…The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from. (C.S.Lewis When we have faces)

a day of small idols

It's my island bench! I've always wanted one! It's mine. Mine!

The new kitchen goes nearly the whole length of the house. There was this little deck, you see, and it was always hot because the sun shone straight on it. So we filled it in and made this huge kitchen. With room for my island bench.

It's my island bench! I've always wanted one. It cost a lot, that island bench.

My mother-in-law wanted to make gnocchi on it. Gnocchi! Can you believe that? You know, the potato has to be really hot. Then you make those little things, then they dry and you have to scrape them off the bench. Scrape them!!! Off my bench! I don't think so. I'm not letting anyone make gnocchi on my island bench.

It's my island bench. I'm not making biscuits on there! It cost a lot, my island bench.

Listener: So what surface does it have?

It's laminate. But really good laminate, y'know? Like if you saw it, it's really good laminate.

It's my island bench. Mine, I tell you! I've always wanted one! It's mine.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was standing near a group of school mums, waiting for our kids to come out of school, when I overheard this one-sided conversation. It reminded me vividly of the woman clinging forever to a smothering love for her son:

No one has the right to come between me and my son. Not even God. Tell Him that to his face. I want my boy, and I mean to have him. He is mine, do you understand? Mine, mine, mine for ever and ever.

This woman is one of the empty souls in C.S.Lewis' The Great Divorce, going into eternity holding desperately to the one thing they can't give up. Endlessly tormented by an attachment they hate but fear to lose. Dwindling to a soul that is "nearly nothing ... shrunk, shut up in itself." Like the grumbler who becomes a grumble:

"The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble ."

"But how can there be a grumble without a grumbler?"

"It begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticising it. And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine."

Have we become so small that our hearts can be won by a plasma television or an island bench? With souls made for the worship of the infinite God, will we give them instead to the worship of a secure nest-egg, an attitude of bitterness, or a nice house in a good suburb? Have we become so small, so nearly nothing?

What will we cling to, screaming that we can't let go, as we are dragged into eternity?

How much better to give up the small joys of this world for an infinite and everlasting joy. To spend eternity endlessly satisfied by the only One who can fulfil every desire of every corner of our hearts. With Jesus, who fills us with "joy in his presence, with eternal pleasures at his right hand" (Ps. 16:11).

warning: house falling down

Our house is falling apart.

A week ago I woke to find a large piece of plasterboard lying on our front porch (so that's what the noise was!). The porch ceiling has been sagging ominously for years under the combined weight of bird's nest and the water which gushes down it every time there's a heavy rainfall.

I tore down the rest of the ceiling to reveal enough nesting material for an albatross, and bare rafters under corrugated iron.

When we bought this house 7 years ago, we knew it hadn't aged gracefully. Permanent stains on threadbare carpets, unmatching external paint and decaying gutters, a verandah with rotting floorboards and inadequate railings, and a delightful 70's colour scheme - pale apricot walls and dark brown wood.

Water stains and a long crack in the ceiling indicated a leak in the roof which the previous owners claimed to have fixed (hah!).

But when I glimpsed mature lemon-scented gums through the back windows, and walked out on the (rotting) back verandah and saw the uni where Steve works over the back fence, I knew it was the one.

We confidently signed the clause in the home loan - "we will keep the house well-maintained" - not knowing quite how hard this would be.

You may recall the waterfall through our ceiling 2 days before last Christmas: we still haven't fixed the leaking roof. The external paint is now flaking as well as unmatching. The tiles have fallen off the walls of one of the bathrooms.

We've spent as much on maintaining the house as we can afford. The first thing we did was to re-point the roof and buy new couches (well, we did need them, but strange priorities new home owners have!). We had the wiring checked, installed a safety switch, mended the fence, replaced the hot water service, and re-built the verandah.

We're about the fix the roof and gutters (finally!), but it may be a long time before we get around to painting or re-carpeting. And the ugly beaten copper range hood which I swore to replace the moment I saw it is still proudly in place.

But you know what? I'm thankful to God for our huge, unfashionable, slowly decaying home. I'm thankful for its size, comfiness and view. But I'm also thankful for its imperfections.

The outdated kitchen leaves no room for pride in fashionable colour schemes and trendy renovations. The anxiety I feel during every heavy rainfall reminds me how fleeting this life is, how vulnerable we are, how dependent on God for all that we have. The worn paint and carpets are a constant visual reminder not to get too comfortable, not to pour all our time and money into creating a beautiful life, as if this is all we have.

Our imperfect house constantly encourages me to set my heart on my true home.

For God has promised us a far greater home in heaven. A place where rust does not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. A mansion with many rooms. A golden city which needs no light, for God is its light and dwells there with his people.

One of the seven angels ... came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel ... I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. Revelation 21:9-11, 22-27; see also Matt. 6:19; John 14:2