As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“C. S. Lewis… asks us to imagine that the world accessible to us right now is nothing more than a black-and-white pencil drawing done by an imprisoned mother trying to teach her child what things look like beyond the walls.” - Word by Word
“Because we’re finite and unique and because we’ll never know everything….we’ll still likely have different tastes in food and clothes and music and thousands of other things.” - Randy Alcorn
Cloud surfing? Harp strumming? Singing in an everlasting worship service? Melting into nothing in the celestial light of God? Is this how we will be enjoying eternity?
Some guesses about our eternal activities are nebulous, and others cross the border into the ridiculous. None of these pictures inspires me to anticipate eternity with joy. George Orwell observed,
“People often say, ‘We don’t understand now, but in Heaven we’ll know everything.’ Is this true? Definitely not.” - Randy Alcorn
“…we desire it precisely because God intends for us to be raised to new life on the New Earth. It is God who created us to desire what we are made for.” - Randy Alcorn
“Our knowledge of the eternal state, however, is much less extensive. Most of it is confined to the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21-22. The environment portrayed there seems to have two outstanding characteristics” - Olinger
What will eternity be like for believers? Recently, in a couple of separate conversations, I heard two believers express the idea that in our eternal state, we won’t care about any of the kinds of things that interest us here and now. We won’t be curious, won’t be seeking answers, won’t be striving to be productive or improve ourselves or our surroundings. One of the two indicated that “ignorance is bliss” and that not knowing or caring about answers to life’s questions will be a key feature of the joy of heaven.
Discussion