Itsara

Update, June 7, 2005: I don’t know where Scott’s original rant has gone, so the link may not point you to the rant I was talking about. At least I quoted a little of it.

“We were meant to live for so much more. Have we lost ourselves?”

A rant by the author of PVP (a gaming web-comic) has triggered a discussion that, in turn, has triggered this post. Scott Kurtz is reflecting on the death of his mother nearly 10 years ago. During that reflection, he starts to get mad at the standard vision of Heaven we have been given:

“Why is it that we as a people are so afraid of the unknown that the best afterlife we can conjure is a cushy spot to sit and look down upon the lives we no longer get to live? Is that the best we can do? Is this the best our religious leaders have to offer us? How utterly uninspiring.”

As part of the e-mail discussion we had regarding the rant, Matt had this commentary to add:

“I didn’t think [Scott] had a problem with Jesus - I think he just has a problem with the Hallmark-ized version of Heaven that (and this is the part that scares me, I realized a minute ago) most of America has. It’s empty, vacuous, and offers no real solace or comfort, or excitement, or anything. It’s ultimately worthless.”

There was definitely a time when I felt the way Scott does about the view of Heaven that I was fed. Although as you’ll see, my conclusion since then has been different (though Matt did hold out the hope that maybe this is God working in Scott’s heart - God, I pray so).

This is what I was taught to believe: that in Heaven we would all be singing praises to God forever and bowing before Him on His throne. I compared this to the singing we did in church (I grew up Conservative Baptist, so it was a lot of hymns and other songs the elders considered “contemporary”). As a kid, nothing bored me more than singing hymns at church, so you can imagine what I thought of that kind of Heaven.

As I grew older, I also grew in knowledge about my faith, but I had seen nothing yet to replace this stodgy view of Heaven. It was a nagging fear in the back of my mind. Even when I found forms of worship that I could wholeheartedly agree with and were no longer boring, it still bothered me that someday all I would be doing is singing (and I liked singing - I couldn’t imagine what a tone-deaf person might think of Heaven).

What changed my worldview was a picture that Dallas Willard painted in his book The Divine Conspiracy. First, he explains what our original purpose was:

“The human job description found in chapter 1 of Genesis indicates that God assigned to us collectively the rule over all living things on earth, animal and plant. We are responsible before God for life on the earth.

However unlikely it may seem from our current viewpoint, God equipped us for this task by framing our nature to function in a conscious, personal relationship of interactive responsibility with him. We are meant to exercise our ‘rule’ only in union with God, as he acts with us. He intended to be our constant companion or coworker in the creative enterprise of life on earth. That is what his love for us means in practical terms.”

Of course, we fell away from that original equipping and began to attempt to rule over the earth and our lives on our own, without God. Willard mentions that there is evidence in us today, both for our mistrust of our Creator, but also that “the deepest longings of our heart confirm our original calling.”

He goes on to describe the difference that comes in our own lives when we attempt to honestly and earnestly live out that “relationship of interactive responsibility”. God longs for this relationship to be renewed - that’s why He sent Jesus to renew it. He longs to draw us into the work that He is already doing, and give us our share to rule over. Jesus often said that someone who can be trusted with a little can be trusted with a lot. Not only “can”, but “will” also. Willard has this to add to it:

“As we learn through increasing trust to govern our tiny affairs with [God], the kingdom he had all along planned for us will be turned over to us, at the appropriate time. ‘Come you who are under my Father’s blessing and take over the government assigned to you from the beginning’ (Matt. 25:34).”

It was this concept that blew my mind and changed my worldview. For the first time I found a view of Heaven that was exciting and inspiring. Heaven is no less than what God originally intended for us at the beginning of creation. Before any of us had turned our back on God, and before this whole epic Story of Redemption began, God had Created, and then He had made beings to share in that Creation. These beings had a purpose and a creative will just like their Creator, and they had been designed to work with Him and to share His joy and His creativity.

And that is the afterlife that we are promised. Not a cushy spot to sip cocktails. Not a stodgy pew in which to exercise our pitch and timbre. But a bigger, better, and more real world in which to live out the True Purpose that God designed in us from the beginning. We were made to work (not dreary, head-pounding work, but joyous, fulfilling work), we were made to create, and we were made to live in relationship with our Creator.

Yes, we will be singing, but it will be worship overflowing from what’s in us, and not forced out of us. We will sing out of spontaneous love for the Creator that we finally know, just as we worship now in our best and highest moments. We will finally live lives of worship the way we were meant to, without the struggles of doubt and weakness to get in our way. It will be just like God said through Jeremiah:

“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.”