Saturday, November 15, 2008

A Collision of Two Worlds

This past summer, I read most of the Chronicles of Narnia. What struck me is the idea of these two worlds that are so close together - just a wardrobe apart. The kids could walk through the wardrobe and be in Narnia. This left me wondering a lot about Heaven and Earth. I grew up praying the Lord's prayer every Sunday, but never really put a whole lot of thought into the prayer. Now, when I don't know what else to pray (which is pretty often), this is what I pray.

... thy Kingdom come, they will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. ...

This part of the prayer strikes me every time. What is it like in Heaven? Where is Heaven? Jim shared a lot about this tonight in the message. However, one verse struck me in particular...

Then I looked, and, oh!—a door open into Heaven. The trumpet-voice, the first voice in my vision, called out, "Ascend and enter. I'll show you what happens next."(Rev 4:1)

Can you imagine what John felt? It was a door to another world...

Heaven.

Maybe Heaven is not in some distant place beyond outer space. I know that is what I always sensed Heaven must be - some place, far, far, far away. What if Heaven is kind of like this parallel world? What if Heaven is behind the back panel of the closet? What if Heaven is right around us waiting to be recognized and realized?

Where are the doors??

1 comment:

Justin said...

Another friend of mine, Jon, posted along these lines just recently.

And also have you heard of N.T. Wright? I think you'd enjoy "Surprised by Joy" which is exactly about this. In the People of Praise we call it one-story theology versus two-story, the idea that we are building the kingdom of God here on earth, rather than simply twiddling our fingers and enduring some "test" while we wait to die and go to the real kingdom upstairs.