Medical Leave

The time has come for a little intermission on CandyceLand. Unfortunately I am having surgery today, but I am hoping to return to this site soon. Please check back in a few days. In the meantime, if you are really bored, you could search the archives here. My stat counter says that I have 231 previous posts; even I don't remember what I wrote when CandyceLand was started back in August, 2009! :-)

Shadowlands

There is much talk in the world of education about the "learning curve," which my dictionary defines as "...the rate of a person's progress in gaining experience or new skills." Without going into too much detail, I would characterize myself as one with a very 'steep' learning curve. In college, I took Beginning Tennis at least three times (and I still couldn't hit a ball); and during Seminary a dear friend tried for two years to teach me how to sew (she ended up finishing all my projects).

So it was with reading and understanding the Bible. It wasn't until I was in my fourth church that I began to see Christ everywhere in the Old Testament. I had a very good pastor/ teacher at that stage in my life, and he challenged me to go searching for Jesus on the pages of Scripture before His birth. This was a radical concept for me. I had always assumed that the Old Testament was everything that happened before the birth of Christ, and that the New Testament was the story of His life, death, and resurrection. What I didn't know was that Jesus can be discovered in every chapter of the Bible, all 1,189 of them!

So it was a similar situation with Heaven. I certainly knew that Jesus spoke a great deal about Heaven, that much of the New Testament testifies to the existence of Heaven, and that the book of Revelation gave the most clues about what Heaven was like ("...neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore"). But the Old Testament? Outside of Genesis 1:1 ("In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"), I was oblivious to the massive amount of references to Heaven, until a new teacher came along to challenge me once again. The teacher this time? Grief.

Grief has a way of making one feel desperate - desperate to feel hope and joy again. Early in my journey I began to keep a Scripture journal. Basically I wrote out - long hand - any verse that touched my soul. I read the Bible much more slowly and carefully than ever before - because I certainly did not want to miss out on any reference to Heaven that I might skip over in my hurry to be healed. And the result? I was absolutely shocked at how much information there is in the Old Testament about Heaven.

Every chapter of the Bible, if considered rightly, has something to do with the eternal purpose of God. Heaven is a big part of that, for Ephesians 1 says that God will "...unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth." Is it reasonable to assume, then, that 78% of the Bible would be silent on the topic of Heaven?

Unfortunately, I did think that - until I saw the Old Testament for what it was: a shadowland of beautiful Heavenly realities.

Words for the Weekend

"To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here."

Jonathan Edwards

A New Heart

If we don't find substantial and convincing evidence from the natural world to prove the existence of Heaven, then where do we turn next? Is there any source that speaks to the examples given in yesterday's post that would confirm the reality of an afterlife? Of course there is: the Bible. Would this convince a skeptic? Only if God intervenes first.

God has to open our eyes, ears, and hearts to the Scriptures. Once we see, hear, and believe the truth about God and Heaven from the Bible, then we can look back at the whispers of life after life from nature or history and feel something of the hope of Heaven.

For example, let's go back to the arguments previously presented from nature. Does the Bible see the seed germination process in any spiritual light? Both Jesus and Paul make extensive use of the lessons of nature that can be seen in this world in order to teach people about the life that cannot be seen. Both of them speak about a seed being planted as an analogy for our bodily death, and the life that somehow springs from that seed being a resurrection life. (See John 12:23-26 and 1 Corinthians 15:35-38.)

What about the fact that throughout history and across diverse cultures men have set their hopes on something beyond the grave? Ecclesiastes 3 addresses this: "God has put eternity into man's heart."

How about 'near-death' experiences?' Jesus' friend Lazarus was in the grave for four days before Christ called him back to this world. Moses and Elijah appeared at the Transfiguration. Christ was seen by many eyewitnesses walking the earth after His crucifixion. John and Paul were both brought up into Heavenly places and then returned to earth in order to write of their experiences.

And finally, what about the beauty of the earth, the joy of a newborn baby, the amazing creation of a human cell? The Psalmist states: "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?"

Indeed, who am I that you are mindful of me? Why was I blessed to read your Word and then believe it? How is it that your Scriptures speak convincingly to my soul of the existence of Heaven?

Thank you, God, for taking the stone heart of a skeptic and turning it into a heart of believing flesh. (Ezekial 36:26)

Hints of Heaven?

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Who says so? Well, God says so. (Gen.1:1) In these ten brief words, the opening verse of the Bible asserts that there is a heaven, there is an earth, and there is a God that made them both at the beginning of time. But if someone is not convinced of the absolute truth of the Scriptures, is there anything in the natural world that might speak to the existence of heaven?

Many are persuaded that the events that happen around us, to believers and unbelievers alike, point to the reality of something beyond this present life. For instance, how can we explain the experience of thousands of people throughout many centuries who claim that their bodies died, but that they had some additional existence in another realm for a time before they were brought back to their mortal lives on earth? Without evaluating the specifics of what people claim that other existence was like, we can at least observe that they indicate that life beyond this life was very real. Are all of these experiences to be completely dismissed as nothing?

Then there are some who believe that the seed germination process is a story that suggests new life after death. Here is the idea behind this one: Think about all the things that grow, and the seeds from which they come. They are planted in the earth, and somehow out of the "death" of a seed, a new life will begin. Beyond the specifics of how plants grow, there are also other nature stories that whisper to us of life after death. A sunrise brings the glorious renewal of a new day, as does the beginning of spring every year. There seem to be countless messages throughout the course of our days on this earth that indicate that as one life dies away, a new life comes into being.

Other people use their reasoning powers to justify their belief in the existence of an 'intelligent designer.' How does one look at a beautiful sunset, or a new-born baby, or even the wonder of a single cell, and think that these have ultimately sprung out of nothingness? The proponents of this perspective would say that there must be an entity behind the world of creation, one who dwells in another sphere.

Finally, (though this is not an exhaustive list!), some would argue that throughout the history of the world, people of all cultures and all faiths have believed in an afterlife. How do we explain this universality of focus on life beyond this earth?

So how would a skeptic crush all these hints suggesting the existence of an after-life? Perhaps by saying that there is something within man that needs to explain away all the messiness of turmoil, grief, strife, illness, war, and other aspects of human existence. Man needs a crutch to survive life, and the supposed 'hope' of heaven provides the much needed motivation for continuing to persevere.

So do you find the above arguments from natural life persuasive? My answer? Thus far I tend to side with the skeptic...

A Very Good Place To Start

One of my favorite songs in one of my favorite movies is "Do-Re-Mi" in The Sound of Music. The reason I enjoy this particular piece of music is because it corresponds with how my mind works. Here is the opening verse:

"Let's start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A-B-C
When you sing you begin with Do-Re-Mi"

This logic (according to Maria) appeals to my sense of order. I need to learn things from the very beginning. I am not one who can jump into a subject in the middle of a lecture. I need to learn the basics of an area of interest before I can move on to more extensive study.

So it was with my thoughts of Heaven as I began to confront whether or not this doctrine could be of any help to me in my time of grief. Therefore, the first struggle was very foundational: Does Heaven really exist? Once I became convinced that Scripture overwhelmingly affirms the reality of a physical place called Heaven, I was then able to ask questions about actual life there. What do people do, day in and day out, for eternity? Next came this thought: Does knowing about the afterlife help me to live this side of Heaven? And lastly, what about the Grand Finale of human history? Ephesians 1 states that God's goal is "...to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth." What will this look like?

This progression, then, will be my outline for "Heaven's Comforts: A Guide for the Grieving Soul." Our journey together will be structured around these four themes: Heaven Exists, Life in Heaven, Heavenly Living on Earth, and The Heavenly Finale.

That may seem like "Fa - a long, long way to run." But really... Let's start at the very beginning.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

What, No Harp?

The task of writing on the topic of Heaven is daunting. Where does one begin? What facets should be included? What do people really want to know? Is there a way to organize this material that is personal, approachable, and yet still true?

We could look to our culture for help. What do we find there? To some, of course, Heaven is all about floating on clouds while playing a harp. To others, Heaven is just one long, very boring worship service. The expectation of most is that nearly everyone will be in Heaven, except for those who commit heinous crimes against individuals and societies. Being reunited with loved ones is perhaps the universal hope of all who would believe in the afterlife. Only "very religious" people express interest in seeing God there. He really does seem to be just an afterthought for most people.

Our only recourse, and obviously the very best one, is to see and read and hear what the Creator of Heaven wishes to reveal to us about our eternal state. He has done this through the pages of Scripture. Why trust anyone else's opinion on this important matter? God created Heaven, He lives there, and He beckons us to come be with Him. If we were planning on moving to Australia, we would not contact a friend in Germany who has never been there to find out what Australia is like. Surely God is the expert witness on Heaven who can and will reveal to us what we need to know about the future home that He has made for us.

"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined... God has prepared for those who love Him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)