Stop Wishing for Heaven

There is nothing more annoying for me today than hearing the squeal of someone shouting, “I can’t wait to meet Jesus in Heaven”. I really should say I am annoyed by many things these days, but this one just grates on my nerves now.

shake them up

After my near death accident a few months ago, many things have changed for me. I have much less patience for stupid questions from skilled people; I have less time in my world for fear. And yes, I have a yearning to grasp someone longing for heaven and shake them up a bit.

knocked some sense into me

Now, you may be thinking I have lost some sensibilities when the tree almost killed me a few months ago. You may be thinking I am just knee-jerk reacting to a life and death situation. There is more to this story, which will be saved for a book, not a blog. But I assure you my friend, I have not lost my sensibilities. In fact, I think God has ‘knocked’ some sense into my brain on June 12th, 2020.

irritation on lack of direction

Have you ever walked into a room and met that woman (or man), who could not contain their joy to leave this earth and meet Christ? Maybe it was a pastor on a stage with a beautiful sermon discussing how glorious the day will be that we enter Heaven and meet God? I have seen and heard this a lot. Truly, these people didn’t irritate me, but what they said did and I had never put my finger on it before.

i have not been water baptized

When I was nine years old, the Holy Spirit baptized me. A wave of heat fell over my whole body starting with my head and down to my toes. I felt light and like I was filled with an air that would lift me up without breathing. I asked God to take over my life and enter my heart. This my friends was when I met Jesus for the first time. I heard His voice audibly speak over me. There was a strength and a lack of fear I had never had in my life up to this point. My life was changed. It was no longer just me walking on this earth but God with me.

i knew He made me different

My grandmother knew Jesus, and I always had known she was different from others in my life at that time. She had this comfort around her, in her and a peace. When the Holy Spirit baptized me that day at camp, at nine years old, I instantly knew what made my grandmother different.

intimacy with Jesus is priority

Warp forward through 30 years, I could write ten books about the ways Jesus saved me over and over again. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of conversations with my new best friend. I am serious when I say that Jesus became part of me, I know Him and He knows me. The best part of Him knowing me is that He loves me regardless of my mistakes. He protects me regardless of my own desires and everything good and bad in my life has somehow worked to Glorify Him. His plans for my life are better than mine ever have been.

this may be hard to hear

So, my friend if you are that lady wishing for Heaven because you want to meet Jesus, I have to tell you something hard right now. You won’t meet Him in heaven if you haven’t met Him here first. You do not know Him. You may know ‘about’ Him in the scripture and rely on your Bible to teach you the history of His life and His teachings. You may already be walking exactly how He walked and LOOK the PART. But, my dear friend, you would no longer wish to meet Him or think Heaven is the final destination if you knew Him already. Our destination is Christ in us, for eternal life with Him, NOW.

i want to hug Him too

Now, don’t get me wrong. We are physical creatures, and I would love a hug from Christ just like the rest of us. I am not saying that we can’t long for His physical presence. But let me explain another thing I think about today. Our flesh longs for touch. Is this where we meet Jesus? No! Quite the opposite. He resides in us, working through us, our bodies are vessels for His church. Our earthly bodies register touch, but our souls understand being touched far greater than our skin could ever.

have you met Jesus yet?

So next time you hear yourself wishing for Heaven, or maybe that person next to you is saying they can’t wait to meet Jesus. Ask them what they mean. Maybe, just maybe they haven’t met Him yet.

my soul already knows Him

My body laid on the ground that night, thinking I was dying. Physically dying. I thanked God for my life and praised Jesus for being my best friend. Retrospectively, I find it interesting that I was not overly excited to go to Heaven. I have had a lot of weeks to think about this, then I realized, He gave me Heaven inside of me daily. I was just laying there waiting for a my physical body to take a new shape but my soul already knew Him.

i won’t ask you why…just how.

Thank you GOD. I won’t ever ask you why, but I long for you to keep showing me how to live on earth for YOU.