When I wrote
this post, I was sitting at home in my comfy chair in my study, my legs wrapped
in a faux animal blanket (yes, we do sometimes need those in Southern Arizona),
and had just completed my 50 Days of
Heaven devotional study written by Randy Alcorn. For some reason only my
Creator knows, my eyelids had snapped open at 3:00 AM, and after a half hour
battle between my brain and body, I resigned myself to rising three hours ahead
of schedule to get my day started.
Today, though, I’m not at home in my
chair. I’m not at “home” at all. I’m actually traveling. For four days I have
soaked up the sights, smells and sounds of one of my favorite places in the
world. (Fortunately, I’m pretty portable and have many “favorite” places.) My
husband and I are preparing to reunite with a yet-to-be-determined number of friends
and peripheral acquaintances for four days of laughter, feasting, picnicking
and frolicking, public service activities, and maybe even a little dancing, if
my arthritic toes cooperate. And we’ll gather for a memorial service to
remember friends who we’ve had to bid a final aloha to, on this side of Heaven,
at least.
The places I’m visiting on my yearly
rest, rejuvenation and no technology holiday (which is also a
my-life-depends-upon-it escape from our searing Southern Arizona June heat) is
a fitting place for me to be so soon after I close my study on Heaven and the
fifty reflections that brought eternity to light. Because in being here—in the
midst of all of this lush beauty, surrounded by water, salt air, and some
errant cacti and pine trees—my mind, and my body, don’t have to “come down”
from Heaven yet. It seems a perfect environment in which to ponder the peace,
fellowship, youthful vigor and abundant, joyful activity I’ll delight in in my
future home. And it is a fitting place in which to ponder just how I pursue my
future, eternal home, right now, on this groaning earth.
To aid me in that pursuit, I have
picked up an “old” book written in contemporary language. It’s The Imitation of Christ: Classic Devotions
in Today’s Language. Author James N. Watkins has taken Thomas A Kempis’s
classic and re-written it for modern eyes and hearts. Although many of us don’t
spend much time pursuing eternity, there is no better way to prepare for Heaven
(and no better way to live here) than to spend your energies—and life—learning
how to imitate Jesus.
Emulating that truth may be more
difficult than it seems when you learn that the primary message of this book
is: “Be content to be unknown and not respected” as Watkins points out in his
introduction. As Watkins professes, through his reading of The Imitation of Christ, he realized that although he knew Christ,
he really didn’t know Him.
And is that not what we as believers
and followers of Christ should aspire to—really knowing our Savior? Like you
know your best friend, your love? After all, He is our bridegroom, and we are
his bride. Randy Alcorn says it beautifully and poignantly in his 50 Days of Heaven.
“Any bride in love with her husband
wants to be with him more than anything.
But if he goes away for a time to
build a beautiful place for her, won’t she
get excited about it? Won’t she
think about it and talk about it? Of course she
will. Moreover, her husband wants her to! If he tells her, ‘I’m
going to prepare
a place for you,’ he’s
implying, ‘I want you to look forward to it.’ Her love and
longing for the place he’s
preparing—where she will live with her husband—
is inseparable from her love and
longing for him.”
In a nutshell: loving and longing
for Christ means loving and longing for (and pursuing) Heaven.
Evaluating Our Thoughts
So why has our longing for
Heaven—our eternal home—grown so cold, so lackluster?
Perhaps it’s because we’re spending so little time thinking about our Husband.
Our eyes and hearts are drawn and fastened elsewhere. As Alcorn also points
out, when we meditate on Jesus and our future in Heaven, sin (and, I might add,
so much of what we do and think is important in life) is unappealing. He drives
the point home when he says, “Our high tolerance of sin testifies to our
failure to prepare for Heaven.” Ouch.
So that will make up a lot of what I’ll
be doing on this year’s vacation—thinking about my Husband, fastening my eyes
on Him, asking Him to reveal to me where I’ve tolerated what He finds
intolerable, and delighting in the natural hors d’oeuvres that are a foretaste
of Heaven.
The world tells us to be prepared
for everything major in life: education, career, marriage, children, buying a
home, retirement. Why not prepare for the
most important place you’ll ever live?
As Alcorn says, we don’t prepare
because we don’t spend too much time thinking about it. Or thinking about it
seriously. And that’s what I’m being convicted to do on this year’s vacation:
Thinking about how I’m preparing (or not preparing) for Heaven. I’m thinking
about my pursuit of imitation. Sounds
like a pretty good investment of time to me. With the ninety devotionals in
Watkins’s book, this pursuing should keep me busy for a while. Actually, it
should keep me busy long after I’ve closed the book. It should keep me busy for
a lifetime.
So, do you mind if I ask, “How are
you preparing for Heaven?” Are you ready to take the challenge and pursue
eternity? If you are, James Watkins’s new book, The Imitation of Christ, might be a good place to start.
Reaching Farther
The
Imitation of Christ had a significant impact on The Jesuits founder, St.
Ignatius of Loyola. The lessons inspired him to compile his own spiritual
disciplines. We’ll look at those next week and see how incorporating them into
our daily lives will help us in our pursuit.
Until next Monday, may your week be
full of blessings that you receive and give, your heart be full of joy and
thankfulness, and your days be filled with laughter! Build a little heaven in
your life right now, and watch your heavenly garden grow!
Blessings,
Andrea
When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven
has begun right here on earth. ~ A. W. Tozer
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