heaven
This afternoon the kid asked where heaven was. Well, I said, it was in a different dimension, but we will be able to see it eventually. "I think it has night sky all the time," she said. "And books. And comfy chairs. And food to eat and water and things to color with. And God and angels sitting around."
What a mental image.
The kid's vision of heaven sounds pretty good to me. To another, that might sound more like hell!
Heaven is a complicated concept to get one's head around, and the more I have to deal with these questions, the more I realize the expansiveness of God--and just how important it is to remember that expansiveness. We try to put God in boxes. We attempt to come to a conclusive understanding of concepts far beyond human perception. Yes, we can garner important information from God's Word. As my copy of The Lutheran Handbook so eloquently states, we should "befriend the written text," reading and studying and gleaning meaning from these inspired words. But will we find a complete record of exactly what we can expect once we enter into glory, forever released from sin, death and the bonds of life on this planet?
Nope--and that's a good thing.
We can dream and we can envision, but we can never fully grasp that which our human nature binds us from grasping. God is bigger; God is broader; God is more than we can understand until we're actually sitting in one of the kid's comfy chairs, book (and crayons) in hand.
More than we can comprehend--eternity without limitations. What a heaven to look forward to, even if we're necessarily fuzzy on the details.
The Lutheran Handbook (Augsburg Fortress, 2005), 146.
What a mental image.
The kid's vision of heaven sounds pretty good to me. To another, that might sound more like hell!
Heaven is a complicated concept to get one's head around, and the more I have to deal with these questions, the more I realize the expansiveness of God--and just how important it is to remember that expansiveness. We try to put God in boxes. We attempt to come to a conclusive understanding of concepts far beyond human perception. Yes, we can garner important information from God's Word. As my copy of The Lutheran Handbook so eloquently states, we should "befriend the written text," reading and studying and gleaning meaning from these inspired words. But will we find a complete record of exactly what we can expect once we enter into glory, forever released from sin, death and the bonds of life on this planet?
Nope--and that's a good thing.
We can dream and we can envision, but we can never fully grasp that which our human nature binds us from grasping. God is bigger; God is broader; God is more than we can understand until we're actually sitting in one of the kid's comfy chairs, book (and crayons) in hand.
More than we can comprehend--eternity without limitations. What a heaven to look forward to, even if we're necessarily fuzzy on the details.
The Lutheran Handbook (Augsburg Fortress, 2005), 146.
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