Heaven on Earth?
It is no surprise to find plenty of wrongs in a world that is seriously out of alignment with God. Horrific wars, systemic oppression, gross injustices, pervasive violence -- one never has to look far to find evil. Worse, evil often finds us through no fault or doing of our own. In a world that is out of alignment with God, how could it be otherwise?
We want a better world. A world as God would have it, if sin (the human choice to do/be as one wishes instead of as God wishes) was not ruining the picture. And to be sure, this world will surely come; that is the final victory, the new creation foretold in the book of Revelations. We call this Heaven.
Yet in the here and now, things are not at all as we think they should be. The Psalmist writes, "How long, O God, will the wicked prosper?" This is not an unreasonable emotion. But if this sentiment becomes the focus of our spiritual lives, in our searching, suffering, and frustration we may begin to make an unconscious demand of our God: This is all wrong, FIX IT NOW! When we move from a spiritual life in which "holy discontent" is one feature, to a spiritual life dominated by this demand to "fix it now," we have become malcontents. And there are life changing ramifications for our present experience of life with God.
In demanding that God fix it now:
- We question God's authority and justice by criticizing his timing, blaming his lack of apparent present action for the way things are -- we are in essence blaming God for the evil we see around us. And with this, Satan is greatly pleased.
- We solidify and elevate our experience of worldly wrongness and miss out on the gratitude, peace, and love that characterize the lives of the children of God.
- To insist upon heaven on earth now is to trade joyful celebration of what good is in the present for a pervasive, joy-sapping sense of disappointment and disillusionment.
- Our demand also cheapens the heaven that is to come by substituting mere improvement in present conditions for an entirely new creation with God at its center.
All of this is the quite natural result of looking to the world for the ultimate meaning and fulfilled desire that only God’s Heaven can provide.
Recognizing that this life and this world is not all there is, and adopting an Eternal orientation, we are freed to enjoy the good things He has given us on this earth, precisely because we are no longer asking of it, demanding of it, what it by its very nature cannot deliver.
C.S. Lewis noted that, “if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
This is not to say that this life doesn’t matter, which would plainly be counter to everything that God is and has done. It is saying that we can experience more joy in this life when we understand that we will find ultimate meaning in our Life with God in his Heaven.
God is sovereign over the universe that he created. God has a plan. His purposes are good. His wisdom is infallible. And His power is complete. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
This life in what we call here and now is not all there is. It is in the Eternal that our hearts deepest longings will be fulfilled. There will be a time, a reality, when all the world is in complete and willing alignment with God because Christ has come again, this time to claim what is His, and rule over a redeemed and restored universe, forever. This Heaven is inevitable, in all its glory and perfection.
As Christians, we wait in humility and trust... and while we wait, we love.