Avoiding Heaven?

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. (Colossians 3:2)

When was the last time you thought about heaven?

I’ve gone looong stretches without thinking about heaven. Months at a time. Maybe years. Sure, I may have mentioned the word or talked about the concept, but actually stopping to contemplate what eternity with Jesus will be like? Yikes. Rarely.

Truthfully, for most of my youth, my view of heaven was more influenced by cartoon drawings of clouds and gates than anything else.

Now, dwelling on heaven feels like a cheat code for consuming the news (and living my life) with true peace.

It consistently produces three things in me:

• Focus: Big things — like impeachments, stock market drops, and celebrity scandals — become less big. Instead, they simply become things that happened in one country at one point in time and have minimal eternal significance.
• Confidence: Scary things — like war or the “wrong” political party winning — become less scary. After all, I’m going to end up with Jesus either way. I can live boldly, knowing it will end well, even if it doesn’t go well.
• Compassion: Sad things — like someone being oppressed or overlooked — become both more urgent and important. I may talk with that person in heaven 10,000 years from now, and I want that to be a joyous celebration of how I followed God’s call to love them, not ignore them.

In short, I had not realized how much of my news-related anger and anxiety could be attributed to my heaven-avoidance.

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Above was taken from a weekly email I get from “News Health Checkup” and today’s was so good I had to share it!