Heaven

I have been spending a lot of time outside this week. The season has turned and Phoenix is glorying in her beautiful spring.

It's been about 75 degrees outside all week.

Every day is filled with warm and embracing sunshine.

This is heaven for me. I lay on the ground and stare at the blue blue sky, the spotless white clouds, and the still bare tree branches. All I can think about is what life will be like when everything is restored. What will the new Jerusalem be like?

I imagine fresh, clean, abundant air.

Never too hot. Never too cold.

Open windows filled with the smell of lilac and lavender.

Bare feet on soft green grass.

No one is crippled, disfigured, broken, or tormented.

Just free, joyful, alive people filling the streets, the fields, their homes with beauty and laughter.

Jesus, our King, walking the streets. He knows us all and stops to talk and laugh.

Celebrations every day. Peace and stillness in the solitude of the surrounding hills.

But we're never really alone. We never need to get away.

Yoga without sore or tired limbs.

Singing and music filling the air.

Fresh food overflowing from tables and trees and hillsides.

Never a sad or distressed moment.

Only joy. The kind of joy we cannot even begin to describe.

And we have nothing to compare it to. We think that too much happiness, too much peace, would overwhelm us.

We have never existed without sorrow, without sadness.

But we will be free. We will run and never grow weary.

We will soar.

Jesus will be the light that fills our every moment. His powerful act of Rescue will have been finally, completely fulfilled.

Heaven. The new Jerusalem. The new earth.

I want to soak in it. I want to swim in the expectation of what is ahead.

And I want to remember to live it now. Live in the full hope of what is prepared for us.

It's easy to do when there are weeks like this...