Made for Another World

For you have not yet come to the final stop and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you (Deuteronomy 12:9).

“Mommy, I think lately God has been trying to tell me something.”

Her big blue eyes stared deeply into mine. The air in the room, so still and quiet a moment before, quivered like a pool disturbed by a noiseless earth tremor. 

“He is telling me that He is coming soon. Jesus is coming with lots of people to take us all up to heaven with him,” she continued, her face filled with glowing certainty.

“And I just can’t wait to go. It will make me so happy.”

I continued listening, my heart caught in my throat. 

“I had a dream about it, you know. Jesus came and Grandaddy was with him. And there were so many other people with him I thought they were clouds in the sky but they were people. My great-great-grandma was there too, the one who loved you. But she wasn’t old. You know, no one is old when they come with Jesus.”

“I was crying at first because I was scared of the big noise. But then Grandaddy held me and took me to Jesus so Jesus could carry me. Jesus whispered in my ear and I felt safe then.”

We were made for another world.

Even the longings that do get fulfilled in this world seem like a not-quite-filled-to-the-top cup of creamy hot cocoa. 

Not quite filled. 

Not quite complete. 

Not quite enough. 

Where does this angst, this lack, come from?

C.S. Lewis said, “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.” 

There is another world where our deepest desires will be satisfied.

Completely. 

In that place, the limitations of this world will no longer hold us. We will not be bound by time, sickness, death, or by senseless evil. The fight against injustice will cease. The oppressed, rejected, abandoned, scared, will be held. Safe.

We were made for another world. #faith #heaven #hope Click To Tweet

My daughter has experienced painful loss in recent years. It has created in her a longing for the next world because she has no doubt it is real. No doubt that we were made for it. Heaven is comforting her here on earth, and this morning it comforted me.

I don’t know when Jesus is coming. But I do know that He said unless we come with the faith of a child, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. My daughter’s faith has stopped me today in the muddy tracks I am making on this earth. This place which is not my final stop and inheritance.

Lord, thank you for the comfort and hope of heaven. Amen.

@audreycfrank