Randy Alcorn wrote a very good book entitled Heaven. It is an encouraging and comprehensive book if it is quite a long read. It is biblical, and full of illustrations that help us think and rejoice about our eternity. One of the features of the book that I love is this. It makes you appreciate living, serving, working, and enjoying our lives here and now. I believe it was C. S. Lewis who said, the people who are the most earthly good are the most heavenly minded.

It is a place. A place that occupies my thoughts frequently. When I was a child a song that we sang in church spoke of heaven as “a land of peace and love.” It is surely what one of the kindest women I have ever known is experiencing tonight since her death on Sunday. Yet we know even something so much better is coming. The new heaven and earth! Home. C. S. Lewis wrote about this in his series for children, The Chronicles of Narnia. Listen to the talking unicorn in the story.

[Jewel the Unicorn] cried.- “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this…. Come further up, come further in!” C. S. LEWIS, The Last Battle (I enjoy reading and rereading these stories.)

As of this writing our beautiful world is a very troubled world. Violence is everywhere. Violence is manifested in nature through volcanic activity, earthquakes, tsunamis, and forest fires. Violent diseases abound. Governments and nations are filled with violence. Strong nations attack weak ones taking what they want by force. Shockingly babies, children, women and unarmed non-combatants are savagely murdered by their invading armies. People violently murder one another in our cities killing toddlers in their drive by shootings. The promise of Jesus brings us hope.

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” John 14:1-2

Place is important. Place is literal; in the Greek language it is topon. A word that means abode, dwelling, inhabited place; it is the word that we get our word topography from. Jesus is preparing a special place just for you!

Every place that we have lived holds special memories for our family. Each time we have moved, I have gone through the house remembering what took place in this room. Memories of our love, Thanksgiving dinners, small group meetings, rocking our children to sleep, playing nerf guns, and the place I have knelt in prayer. The house just doesn’t seem the same once we are packed up and on the way out.

When we move into the new house, we go through and dedicate every room to the Lord, including the bathroom. It reminds us that we want to keep clean hearts and minds. Once we settled in this new home becomes that special place. So special that even when we take a vacation or visit family members, we can’t wait to get home.

Living in this violent world, where our children have to go off to fight in war, where a policeman puts a uniform on and becomes a target, a family worries for their safety walking in a city park, and nature even becomes violent, Heaven holds great promise. I agree with Jewel, the Unicorn. “This is my real country! I belong here.” It is my real country and yours. We belong there! It is on my mind a lot lately.

Peace!