Heaven

The day I first found out we were moving, I was laying in bed thinking how sad leaving our friends and life in CO. I didn't want to fall asleep thinking things like that, so I pulled out a pad and started to write whatever. Turns out, I wrote a scene in which all of my friends from Arkansas and Colorado were altogether with Jesus in heaven. Jesus kicked the angels off the instruments and let us play them and everybody sang and couldn't stop smiling. After all, what was there to stop smiling about? Even Jesus missed a few high notes here and there, and everyone laughed just for the heck of it. Nobody really could think of a reason to stop the singing and talking and laughing until Jesus banged a pot and called everybody outside to His big big yard to play some football!

It sounded like so much fun, and God's been pressing on me lately that just like I will move away, I will someday move to heaven. I had some preconceived notions about heaven at one point in my life like a lot of people have - won't it get boring after a while? But I'm learning that heaven is our number one thing to look forward to! God didn't invent boredom - he invented everything fun and good!

And now, let me hype up the band Foolish Things. They are Colorado natives that broke up as a band a couple of years ago, but their music is AMAZING. It's not the type of music that sticks in your head as your favorite song - it's the type of music that pops up during the hard times in your life and comforts you. Here is the song, "It's Not Home" from their CD, LET'S NOT FORGET THE STORY which is my theme song for the moment.

Time is like a grain of sand on the beaches of eternity

but we're here toiling, planning

like we'll never leave

I know your fire is coming

What will stand the flames?

Will your return find me running

or blind and lame?

I've gotta say that I've lived too many days like I belong here

It's not home

I'm shocked to see the measure

of where I've been storing treasure

It's not home

The question's calling louder

"Who do you believe?"

and the answer lies upon the things to which we cleave

I know you're gone ahead

to build a place for me

so I'll trust the things you said

Trust though I can't see

I've gotta say that I've lived too many days like I belong here
It's not home
I'm shocked to see the measure
of where I've been storing treasure
It's not home

Have we believed the fiction

authored by the world's depiction

of how it is?

Let's not forget the story

we're living for his glory now

You laid it down for me

So I lay it down for you

I've gotta say that I've lived too many days like I belong here

It's not home

I'm shocked to see the measure of where I've been storing treasure

It's not home

I'm not home here

It's not my home

Daniel's Visions

In addition to being a neat book about how normal guys stand up for God and God helps them through hardship, Daniel has a lot of prophecy about the end times. Today there was a lot about horns battling each other, and strange beasts - I don't know about you, but I find that impossible to understand. So did Daniel. But there was one passage that spoke in plain English.

"...There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge."

I've always wondered if you go straight to heaven when you die, and here it sounds like we just sleep in the dust until the End, then we all are judged together. Not necessarily of course, but wouldn't it be neat to suddenly wake up to everlasting life?

I also thought about Daniel - he's just some smart kid who was brought to Babylon as a captive, and God gave him this vision instead of anybody else. You think about the other people who have seen great visions - Isaiah, who volunteered; and John, who was the disciple that Jesus loved! But Daniel sure didn't ask for these visions - in fact he didn't like them too much. It's neat to see who God can choose to do his work. Daniel wasn't anything better than the other guys he with with, but God gave him wisdom beyond all the other wise men and showed him these visions about things that would happen thousands of years later.