Preparing for Eternity

I've been thinking about heaven lately.

It's not something I ponder all that often, although my mom tells me that when I was little I would talk a lot about wanting to be in heaven and with Jesus.  That has always been something I have looked forward to with great excitement and anticipation.

However, the last few days--especially with all the "hype" about the Mayan calendar's supposed prediction of the end of the world--I've been thinking a little more about heaven than usual.

On the way home from my in-laws' tonight (we had a wonderful Christmas with Joshua's family), I was looking out at the stars, and the snow glowing in the reflected moonlight, and thinking about the world and how long it will last.  Then I realized that it doesn't matter how long the world will last--one day, a week, a year, or a thousand years.  No matter when I die, or when Jesus comes back, I will go to heaven to be with him for eternity.

Eternity.  That's a really long time.

Eternity, to be with the God who created us, the Son who died for us, the Spirit who lives in our hearts.

Eternity, to talk with those people from the Bible who sometimes seem like characters in a wonderful story, but who were real people who walked and breathed and lived on earth, and who are living now in heaven.  Real people, part of the body of Christ in heaven and on earth, the body of which we, his children, are also a part.

People like Mary--who I've been thinking about a lot lately--and Paul (just imagine having a theological conversation with that guy!), and Adam and Eve, Moses, and King David.  People who lived lives that were not perfect, but who trusted in God and his promises.  People like us.

We'll get to meet them someday.  Because we know, we can trust and believe, that Jesus will come back for us to take us to live with him.

It changes my view of life, and my priorities.  Because if Jesus could come back any minute, what matters is not what my house looks like, but what my heart looks like.  "Let every heart prepare Him room," we sang today.  Are we preparing our hearts for the next coming of that newborn King?

I wish to live my life--each and every day--preparing my heart for eternity...