This is what heaven looks like...

What does heaven look like?

I think the Great Story makes it clear.

God did not create the earth in six days so that the seventh was really the first day of the second week.

No.

It took God seven days to complete his work.

The seventh day he blessed and called holy. In the Hebrew culture, only a soul can be called holy. Perhaps in the new heaven and on the new earth, on the new mountain which gets bigger as you climb higher, eternity will be one long seventh day—an eternal rest for our souls. In every moment we will actively and with buoyant playfulness enjoy the perfect relationship with our Father and with each other. An eternal seventh day where our souls do not cry out for vindication any longer, where we are free from our poisonous self-consciousness, where we no longer hurt others in our anxious fear, and where the new earth is as magical as the old, but in a far greater way.

 

Our Father is a God who takes initiative to do new things, to do creative things, to give his uncreated nature to created children for the sake of family feasts, board games, and swimming under a fantastic blue sky.

That is the foundation of this fairy tale.

And my soul nods its head in happiness and with tearful longing.

For as a child learns by watching his father, I look upon what my Father has done. I look upon our indescribable Father and all that he did to create, all that he sacrificed just for us…and I call him good…oh, He is very good indeed.

In the morning, I think of heaven.

Greener hills, my eyes have never known, while the trees, their herculean, coarse trunks, and the softness of the leaves, like pillows, sway in a cool breeze of rushing waters.

 

The sound of these waters soak my heart and I am refreshed.

The light, a friend, pirouettes upon the hills, particles like fairies dance in the silhouette.

Patterns bounce off the stones resting in the brooks which tumble through the hills, on their way to the lake, sweet and laughing as they rush past.

Lions and lambs, elephants and dogs, fish and birds play together and we wrestle like brothers

And souls, like mine, broken and humbled that they behold this splendor, this incomparable beauty, this land called Love, painted by Love Himself!

And the Father who smiles as we marvel…

It is a land of promise and of joy.

Infinite horizons and unsetting stars

Tables are set with chalices of wine which never empty, fruits which never rot.

Who are we chosen to dwell here…in the land of our Father…

 

And the music starts up. 

A melodious and inspiring tune of merriment and frivolity!

It casts off all fear, like bathing waters which wash away the black grime of our shame.

We are clean and given fresh white robes…

And the music plays!

And we dance!

In the pirouetting light, with the pillowed leaves and the soft trunks and the bounding animals, across the laughing brooks of clearest water, upon the green hills of our Father’s love,

We dance!

And we sing!

Bless the Lord o our souls! Praise His name!

For He sacrificed all that he had, all that he was, to bring us home…

for His love never fails.

And the light never fades, and the fairies flutter so sweetly, and the waters ever flow, and the trees sway and the lions laugh and joy abounds like an eternal dream

And our Father smiles…

And we marvel at this, our undeserved fortune, and rest in this, his warm and everlasting embrace.