The Other Side of the Mountain Part Two

I do not wish to die. Not yet, anyway.
 Nor do I wish my loved ones to pass from this place.
 Yet at the back of my mind niggles this question: am I too comfortable—always knowing what comes next?


Do I not choose to repeat, over and over, the same mistakes?


What plans does God have for me, plans that I would mourn if I knew now but later rejoice?
 Everything here is measured: time, performance, beauty, intelligence, work effort, productivity…


In some ways, there is both distress and safety in measurements, comparisons.


I can evaluate and decide what pleases me most.

I do not have to look beyond my linear vision of the space around me.


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God chose to catch away Enoch, a righteous man, into His realm to speak to consider what was to come in resolution of errant angelic beings.


The elements of Nature—more intimate than we know here—trees and clouds and mists and winds welcomed Enoch to carry him on his journey through time and space. 


Enoch saw the wind, not simply felt the effects of it -those mysterious waves that rustle leaves, that soothe the heated brow, that push bodies aloft and currents of the ocean to overwhelm the land.


He describes trees so aromatic that their fragrances penetrate the body to the bone; some are familiar- frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, nard—and others he cannot identify.


There rivers of fire flow like water; from the trees hang fruits, some never known; he sees the Father’s treasuries of stars, of winds, of luminaries, of thunder and living waters.


Enoch enters a house built only of crystal and precious stones with a ceiling of “lightnings and the paths of stars” and a floor of flames.


This is the house of the “Great Glory,” the Lord.

Enoch is surrounded by His angels who speak of what is, “of what was to come, not for his own generation but for a remote one which is for to come.”


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But there are valleys of darkness and also places that burn day and night; Enoch shudders to even describe. 


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There the mountains—not just our amulets or jewelry or rings—are made of precious colored stones and pearl and sapphire and crystal.

And so I ask.


Are these rare earthly treasures we consider precious beyond measure simply fragments of heaven?


Is it possible that where we live now is not the “real world” but just the dream, the precursor to a dimension that is unconfined by such limits?


That there will be knowledge so abundant as to fill each moment with surprise and interest and even—missions to fulfill?


Scripture, all of it, is full of God’s energy, a dynamism so powerful we can only dimly glimpse it now and then.


To imagine the glory, beauty, splendor, the renewal, the exhilaration to stand there for the first time after exiting the linear confines of a human body…


To absorb its fragrance into the bones, the blinding magnificent lights that words or brain cannot grasp….


To translate from this to that, to stand looking at Jesus for the first time, face to face, both His and mine teary eyed, to witness His gentle smile as He says, “Now, now you are home.”


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What is heaven?
 Is it a place where the “saints” float in angelic bodies, distant from all that is earth, to one another? 


An endless church service where we sing “Just As I Am” over and over and everyone turns in judgment when a baby in the back row cries?
 Or, as some say, do we simply cease to exist, disappear, only the ashes of the body floating on earth or space?
 To nothingness?
 I reject this.


But what is truth, as Pontius Pilate asked sorrowfully when he looked at the Son of God even as the Jews demanded the death of the Son of the universe rather than that of Barabbas, a thief and murderer.


What is truth?


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So what is it like to move from this body to another?


Jesus Christ Himself provides our best imagery as He was seen and taught others for 40 days after His resurrection.


He ate with his friends, the disciples.
 He spoke with them as they asked questions.


He appeared and disappeared, unaffected by time and space.


He was not a disembodied spirit; He was transformed into a reality of which we know only what the Word tells us.


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No, we will not be simply ghost or spirit. 


Much of what we believe about heaven is more cartoon than real.
 What we see here now is flat and non-dimensional, offering only brief glimpses of the truth of the supernatural.
 We will be fully empowered by the Holy Spirit, dwelling no longer in an “earthly tent’ but a “house not made with hands.”


We shall be like Him, unconfined by materiel or dimensions. 


Heaven is a real tangible place, not governed by time and space as we know it now, but both ethereal and physical and more multi dimensional than the way we live here.


If life here is just a glimpse of our future existence, will it not be amazing and unpredictable, constructed by a Creator of incomprehensible beauty, imagination and excitement?
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No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. (NLT, I Corinthians 2:9)


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No.

We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.