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A pastor got very frustrated hearing one of the members of her church talking all the time about an afterlife. So, at lunch one day, the pastor told her the following story.
Two men were lost in a desert. They were about to die of thirst. At night an angel appeared to them. The angel said, “I am going to show you heaven.” Then, they had a vision of heaven and were overwhelmed at the beauty they were seeing. After the vision they could only look at the angel, stunned by the memory of the vision. The angel asked, “Alright, are you ready to go there, now?” One enthusiastically spoke, “Yes! I’m ready!” The other, after thinking a moment, said, “No, I’m not ready. Please help me find my way back home. As beautiful as heaven is, it cannot compare to the beauty of helping one person down here.”
I have little to say about heaven as a place after what we call death. I like to speak of the heaven that can be here and now, for Eternal Life is here and now. In this sense of heaven now, we create an inner experience of heaven through the love we have for God and share with others. I do not long for a place after death, rather, I long to know the experience of that place as an experience of sharing love with this world that God loves so dearly and deeply.
To love, even a little with God’s love now, that to me is heaven now. Anyway, if I cannot enjoy heaven now, why should I think I could later, simply by my body dying? Is God to be any more real to us later than God can be right now, when we open our hearts to the Heart of Love?
Prayer
Spirit of Christ, bring to me, today, whom you want to love through me. Spirit of Christ, bring to me whom you want to love me through, today. Amen.
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spirtual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net . Brian's book of mystical love poetry, An Ache for Union, can be ordered through major bookdealers.
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
The People of the
United Methodist Church
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