Michal and I are in the process of purchasing our first home together. As I look through various listings that match our budget, my heart is yearning for a place of warmth and romance, a place that my dreams call home.
In my imagination, our house is contained on a lush slice of space, where the verdant lawn feeds our sight and the pink blossoms soothe our senses. This tract is far removed from the chaos of rowdy engines and blaring sirens, on a street with no end and no commercial clutter. Children are playing outside, free from dread and full of glee. A soft wind rustles through the linden tree, and a bright sun smiles its approval through the kitchen window. Everywhere I look, there is a morsel of green to stimulate the soul and purify the air. This patch of grass and blossoms is a place of perpetual vacation for our thoughts and an inspiration for our heavenly ascent.
As much as I nurture this recess of my dreams, our present circumstances remind me that such a place is outside our reach (pending a miracle, of course). As vivid as this reality of unfulfilled dreams is, as clearer the substance of heaven emerges. This space of disordered byways and jammed pavements is not my home. This minute corner of the Milky Way galaxy, a speck of dust in the blueprint of a measureless universe, is not my destiny. I am designed and commissioned for heaven. My residence is a place of proportions that exhaust my understanding and sink my imagination.
Heaven is the atmosphere of joy-an ocean always flowing and never tainted by melancholy. Tears, or worry, or want are outside the scope of paradise reality. There is no want for treasures or titles, nor is there loss or end. There we need not hide from elements of rain or dust, nor retire under the canopy of night. Its currency is love, and its light is the Face of God. God penetrates everything and everyone-thus only His followers, in holiness and purity, will secure their address there.
The place we will likely call home here is stratospheres away from my dreams. However, I am content with that. This ride of measured moments is not the final station. My gaze is upward, my hope is inward. God's glory is the end and the beginning.
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."
"Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city."