Heaven: What’s it like?

That great future mystery that so many of us hope to experience after death at some point. What is it? What does it look like?

I have no clue.

I’d say that most people would picture heaven a specific way, though. A bright, cloudy, spirit-y place. Maybe a place with a bunch of singing. A place where angels dwell. Possibly even pearly gates.

But I think what is more common is a type of assumption we all have had at one point about what heaven will be like in the sense of what we will be doing. I have often pictured heaven as a place where we will all just lounge around and rest. Maybe some big church services. I know some people believe it will be a place to ask questions and finally find answers. Maybe it is a place of true, ultimate enjoyment. I don’t doubt that, but I don’t know if it will be enjoyment as we think of that now. I question my own assumptions of heaven being a place to sit around and drink lemonade all day being somehow waited upon by God. I don’t know that he will just give us all good things in the form of a big party. I don’t know if that is what ultimate enjoyment, or ultimate worship, is.

I just got back from serving as a leader at a Wyldlife summer camp. Only one boy from our area came, so he was the only one I was in charge of. His name was Alex and he has Down syndrome. It was definitely a tough week for me, but also one of the most fulfilling weeks of my life. I was able (and forced) to completely serve. I gave of myself more completely than I ever have before. And in the middle of it I wondered – what if heaven was like this all the time?

What if heaven was a place where we could completely give of ourselves in service to other people? What if heaven is a place where we are so close to God that we can constantly be poured out? What if heaven is a place where we will finally be able to truly serve, to finally begin to live the way Jesus told us to live?

I don’t doubt that it will be restful even this way. I believe that heaven will be a place of worship, just maybe that will look different than we are used to. I also don’t think that this is something only reserved for the distant future. I think that I experienced a little piece of heaven this past week in spending time with Alex and pouring myself out in serving him.

“If I could become the servant of all – no lower place to fall.” –mewithoutYou (Aaron Weiss)

Mark 10:35-45

The Holy Bible, New International Version

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
“We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with,
but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.
Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

About the last post

I just have to remember that I am the bucket and not the water. I cannot even claim the water as my own by right. It is a gift that fulfills my purpose.

I went back and forth on whether or not to draw little buckets under the main one being filled by the water coming out of it (that is the inferential meaning behind the streams coming down), but now I think it would have been fine. The water is the same water even after passing through me. I am not so dirty or broken that I can ruin that rush of water. And some buckets may only be filled by the overflow from me.

I just hope that all I ever pass on (in all my life) is the water.