MDM4M - Special Article Series

River and sea are entered without fear, no trepidation at entering an unfamiliar element. Dolphin, trout, salmon and orca meet me in waves and current. Rejoicing at my presence, leaping in tandem display, enclosing me in a school of silver, flashing off in a burst of speed, hovering by my side, mimicking the movements of my body… I am in paradise and my heart soars within me.

Heaven is impossible to describe, difficult to understand. Biblical writers talked about it, but those who "saw" it most directly struggled to describe something beyond all human experience. Paul was given a glimpse into paradise and said he heard things that cannot be told. (2 Corinthians 12:4) John "saw" heavenly images: the New Jerusalem descending like a bride, streets of pure, transparent gold, gates made of huge pearls, foundations laid with precious stones. I get the sense that John wracked his brain trying to articulate what he saw. His best efforts giving off a tantalizing aroma of something cooking behind oven doors that cannot yet be opened.

Mark Buchannan in his book, "Things Unseen" gives a good illustration of the human experience of trying to grasp heaven. He says it like this;

"Our attempt to picture heaven has sometimes been compared to twin infants inside the darkness of their mother's womb. They talk about a world outside. They've heard rumors. One infant says to the other that just beyond the darkness, beyond the thin walls of this cramped place, is dazzling light. It reflects and refracts a billion shades of color and makes visible a vast and astonishing world. There are towering mountains, girdled with millions of trees, crowned with a blinding whiteness. There is a sky, sometimes brilliant blue, other times filled with great white shifting shapes, at still other times a cauldron of grays or an inkwell of blackness flecked with countless tiny sparks. There are immense oceans, darkly raging or glassy smooth. There are creatures of every description above and on and under the earth, large and small, crawling and leaping, soaring and burrowing, diving and slithering, singing, roaring, howling, chattering.

The other infant listens, incredulous, and finally says, "Nah. You're making all this up. There's nothing out there, and if there is, it's probably pretty much like things in here."

In the darkness of the womb, in the limits of an infant's imagination, how could anyone conceive of such wonders? How could anyone picture a giraffe, a waterfall, a ladybug, a zinnia?"

How can we, infants entombed in the womb of this earth see beyond its galaxies and into the gates of heaven? We can't, at least not with the five senses championed by science. But we can learn about heaven by "looking" and "hearing" through the "eyes" and "ears" of the Holy Spirit who lives there. This being who has been deposited into our lives as a guarantee of what is to come. Who resides in heaven, daily seeing and experiencing all of it first hand, a witness eager to pass on information to all open ears. Scriptures, our imagination and our deep hearts desires are all mediums he uses to communicate the truths of heaven, painting for us a picture of its reality. And because we have not seen with our own eyes and touched with our own hands, the things of heaven, we must accept these truths by faith. For heaven is beyond all we have yet experienced.

And for this reason I say dream. Dive deep into the desires of your heart, be still, listen to the Holy Spirit and you will taste heaven. For you have been made for paradise, why else does the brokenness of this world cause you to suffer?

by: Alan Penner