I have not anticipated heaven as a family reunion or a place. The longer I have stayed on this wonder-filled planet, the more I appreciate the emotions that an event or happening elicits from that Divine place where God has taken up residence inside of me.
I have had six experiences in which I was profoundly moved emotionally. To the point of not having the ability to process what I was emotionally encountering.
Hearing the 1812 Overture, written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
In the Fall of 1966, I was a freshman at Belmont College. I was dating Regina T. She had considerably more class, so she tried to lift me culturally by taking (dragging) me to a Nashville Symphony concert at the War Memorial Auditorium. From the first note, I was hooked. But when the bombs were set off with the flash, the concussion, the smoke, and the gunpowder smell, I was lifted out of my reality! I will always be thankful for her taking me.
Watching the Northern lights in Alaska
In January 1970, I was participating in the Army’s “Acid Test 1,” living in a tent outside of Fairbanks in sub-zero temperatures. Since it was dark all day, I don’t know what time it was, but the stars were outshone by the brilliant display of the Aroa Borealis. In that celestial encounter, my army life and the minus thirty degrees were removed from my mind.
Seeing Jan enter the sanctuary of the FBC of Tullahoma in her wedding gown.
It seems to me that she was on her father’s arm, but that part is hazy in my memory. I was almost in convulsions of awe. No one prepared me for the onset of that much adrenaline. I doubled down on clenching my fist as every opening in my body began to leak. I think my ears were bleeding from the insane cranial pressure of the expanding joy.
I was in a delivery room with four other humans, and suddenly, there was a sixth.
The first two were in New Orleans, and the third in Nashville. I still cannot get over another human’s mysterious and sudden appearance right before my eyes. And more, I got to keep the gift and the giver for myself.
Standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon
I had seen photographs and “pan-o-vision” movies of the Grand Canyon. I knew what it looked like, but only by being on the edge could I experience its commanding presence. I had seen the canyon’s colors and structures, but its immensity and grandeur put me in my place.
Standing in a grove of ancient Red Woods
Jan and I took our last road trip together a year and a half ago. We drove from Seattle, Washington, to Big Sir, California. Jan was not feeling all that strong following a round of chemotherapy and sat in the car while I walked a few hundred yards into a grove of redwoods. There was a chilling hush that met me. I was in the very presence of God. It felt like God had just walked around the bend of the trail as He created his garden. I worshiped!
Those events are clear in my memory, but I no longer emotionally feel their intensity.
I think heaven will be like each of those events in my history but with one major addition: the exaltation will not fade. The experience of heaven will be fresh continuously. Surprise will be constant. Eurica will erupt unceasingly. Delight will be perpetual. Surprise will be everlasting. Magnificence and spectacular will be words without meaning.
It will be a good thing that life is everlasting in heaven because we will be held breathless at the beauty of His radiance. I anticipate there will not be a clear differential between our Creator and what He has created. To see one is to see the other.
Then, if we can take our eyes off our God, we will likely be mesmerized by what He has created for us to enjoy for eternity. What we behold will never become common. We will never adjust to a new heavenly normal. Every time we shift our eyes to a different part of His creation, we will be awestruck. Even when we look at a particular vista a thousand times, it will be a fresh new experience every time. Amazement, wonder, and awe will continually well up in us in a plethora of individual expressions of praise and adoration. Peace and joy will be our ever-present companions through our unending discovery of His Person in His Creation.
I do not know if we will be in a huge mass choir or planting beans and taters, but I am confident that if we think this old earth is awesomely filled with His craftsmanship, just wait until you see the next. How will we be able to take in the new heaven and new earth? No wonder He plans to give us new bodies; this one will be grossly inadequate.
But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 KJV.
Photo – Taken in Kurdistan. A lonely tree in an open pasture where shepherds tend their sheep.
Baldwin Heirlooms 