A poem on heaven.

The following is a poem that I scratched down while on vacation with Jess this last week. I am not anything near a polished poet, but I have found that poetry can be an interesting way to journal and meditate on Scripture from time to time. I would like to say a special thanks to Jess for her help in smoothing out some rough spots and for her encouragement to post it!

Heaven for me?

As the saved of God, the hope of life,
and never ending love, and truth, and light,
Are sufficient enough to draw me to Thee,
but these I fear all focus on me.
For I seek my rest, my pleasure, my best,
you just paid the price, just cleaned up my mess.
I would like to think that heaven’s for me,
but if this is my hope disappointed I’ll be!

Yes heaven’s the place that’s free from life’s sin,
and after this age, earth too will be then.
Free from pain and from strife and the junk of this life,
filled with peace and with love that we learn from above.
In the absence of sin, yes we will be free then;
but this not for me but to forever worship Thee!

Imperfect now as we ponder Your grace,
soon we will know as we gaze on Your face;
the depth of Your love that through history You’ve shown,
and the perfection of the future that we yet fully know.
You created the universe and this earth and then man,
in spite of the fact we would stray from Your plan:
Your earth filled with sin, man corrupted within,
with a debt none could pay, all lost and astray.
But You sent Your Son, who gave His life for us all,
won victory over sin, as You’ve promised since the Fall.

This forever we’ll sing in the worship we’ll bring,
it will fill endless days in the words of our praise.
The debt that was paid long ago on the cross,
deserves nothing less, but much more – I’m at loss…
But what we have we will give in our praises to Thee,
as we join with the angels singing, “holy, holy, holy!”

It may seem to some that there’s reason to pout,
because all the fun in heaven’s left out.
What earthly pleasures from life will there be,
if we spend all our time forever worshiping Thee?
What of nature and beauty, what of family and friend?
Why, I hear from good sources even marriage will end!
There’s so much that’s good, so much right that we see;
what left of our loves in this life will there be?

The us we know see shows only a part,
of the beauty within an uncorrupted heart;
that we will know in the end, when all is made right,
with Christ on the throne, at the end of this night.
Then perfect we’ll be, imago dei through and through,
and now we can assume there’s nothing else we’d rather do,
that worship the One who loved us through it all,
through the sin of our lives, in spite of the Fall.
The pleasure we sought apart from God’s will,
can in no way compare with what we will feel-
when in Your presence we fall on our face,
and forever together, we sing of Your grace!

Home-bound

When I was a child I loved to go out to my cousin’s place and ride horses. They always set me up with a big, tan horse who was probably well past its working years and took life pretty easy. I remember how difficult it was to control the horse, not because of any bucking or crazy behavior (which would be much cooler to talk about) but because it just wanted to return to the barn. I’m sure that my arms were sore for a week after pulling on that horse’s head, trying to keep it from turning towards home. Once it was time to head back towards the barn, it was difficult to keep the horse from shifting up into a gallop, it loved the barn so much.

One of the reasons that I think that it can be so difficult for us to hold on to our joy is that we forget where our real home is. Our flesh urges us to strive towards some goal of a perfect life on earth, complete with every comfort and free from any stress. On the other hand, Christ calls us to look towards eternity with Him and live this life with our eternal home in view. Like the horse in my childhood, we will be drawn towards the home that we desire; it is our responsibility, through the Spirit, to keep our focus on heaven and eternal life with Christ rather than the elusive claims of this temporary life.

The rub is that we have to look past the world that we see with our eyes and aspire for a world which we cannot see but only read about, at least for now. Even though we cannot look at pictures or videos of our eternal destiny to keep our goal fresh in our minds, we can still keep vivid images of heaven stored in our hearts. When the idols of this life confront us and promise us every pleasure, a quick glance at the image of our eternal destiny will melt temptation’s power and bring us once again to the worship of Christ.

Passages like Isaiah 65:17-21 and much of Revelation provide pictures of heaven that we can store in our hearts, and hymns and poetry based on a Biblical view of heaven are also very valuable. I especially like the poem entitled Glorified by John Piper, which includes this excerpt:

And in the twinkling of an eye
The saints descended from the sky…

And every sorrow deep within,
And every trace of lingering sin
Is gone. And all that’s left is joy,
And endless ages to employ
The mind and heart to understand
And love the sovereign Lord who planned
That it should take eternity
To lavish all his grace on me.

O God of wonder, God of might,
Grant us some elevated sight,
Of endless days. And let us see
The joy of what is yet to be.
And may your future make us free,
And guard us by the hope that we,
Within the light of candle four,
Are glorified forevermore.

What do you use to keep your focus on heaven?