Warning to the reader. If you are young and idealistic, please do not take this too seriously. Do not lose your vision for the future or your joyous desire to create a better world. We need that more than ever. But understand that I speak from some experience, and I speak as a person who tends to live in the future more than the past.
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The older I get, the harder it is for me to comprehend heaven.
Heaven seemed possible when I was young. I was filled with idealism and hope, and felt that great things could be accomplished (and they often were). Living well meant living with great anticipation for the future. I felt that any failures I experienced could be seen as learning opportunities, and “next time” would be better. I wasn’t naive about fully eliminating disappointment and pain, but the concept of heaven was something that seemed very real to me.
But now — and I am not depressed as I write this — I’m beginning to lose my idealism. I’m beginning to sense that failure and mistakes and errors are around forever. Perfection is a myth. Utopia is unattainable in this world. Being a model father, husband, employer, leader…it’s just not realistic and there will always be chinks in the armor. My sense of idealism is even weaker when I contemplate organizations, whether for-profit or not-for-profit. Imagining a heaven-like organization is almost impossible for me these days.
As I said, this is not depression or sadness. I have no sense of loss. I am not a defeatist. I’m just recognizing that my youthful idealism is no longer my expectation for the future.
The result on my spiritual perspective is clear: the more I know and the more I experience, the more unfathomable heaven becomes. It’s hard for me to imagine a place that is filled to overflowing with love, hope, peace and justice. I can’t get my mind around it.
But here’s the cool part. The further I grow away from my ability to comprehend heaven, the more I want to experience it. Heaven sounds more magical and mysterious than ever. It sounds simply wonderful.
Twenty something years ago I taught a class on the second coming of Christ. To fit my audience of new believers, I kept it simple by focusing on the importance of living in hope.
This class started just around dinner time on a weeknight. So as I started the class, I picked up a cell phone (a rarity in those days) and called the local pizza place. I took requests from the audience of a 100 people or so, and ordered a dozen pizzas. Then I went into my lesson. It concluded an hour later with the simple message, “Live in anticipation.”
Of course, the pizza never came (I had called my office answering machine). And when people asked about the pizza, I said, “As I said, live in anticipation.” It got me a lot of laughs and a few groans, but I got the point across. Then the following week in the middle of the class with the same group of people, the pizza showed up! It surprised everybody and fit perfectly with my message about the second coming — nobody knows when Christ returns, so live in hopeful anticipation. And we’ll party when it happens.
Thinking back on that message, it seems more important to me than ever. Heaven seems like such a wonderful place. I can’t wait to be there. But it is also a place that confounds my understanding. Maybe only Saints and children can comprehend heaven. Maybe Golden Retrievers, too, since they seem happy all the time. But for the rest of us, we just live in hopeful anticipation.
Which is actually a pretty nice way to live.
With a stick and an open field, Sadie has no problem comprehending heaven.