The After Party

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

My daughter Lily has been talking about Heaven quite a bit lately. She loves to hear stories from The Jesus Storybook Bible, which is a kids’ Bible that I highly recommend because it doesn’t shy away from the really hard stories of the Bible, and it always points the readers towards Jesus and his unending love. Because there is so much death and destruction in the Bible, Lily and I have been talking about what happens to us after we die. She has fixated upon a few key heavenly images: notably, the idea that no one gets hurt in Heaven (even when they fall off their bikes) and the possibility that we might not need sleep (so we have more time for eating Lucky Charms and riding our scooters outside).

I love that even someone as young and immature as my preschool-aged daughter can understand the perfection that awaits us in Heaven. The prospect of an eternity with God is absolutely enthralling.

Except when it’s not.

Eventually, as we grow older, we learn to fear death (and feel remorseful about the ones who will grieve after us) and our excitement about an eternity spent praising God can wane. Sometimes we even wonder if it will be…boring.

Whenever I’m having a hard time leaving this life behind for the glories of eternity, I think about some of the images used in the Bible. One of the recurring images is that of a huge party, where all of your favorite people are in attendance, where the music is just right, where the food is abundant, where you can spend time face-to-face with God. Imagine being a child at a birthday party, or having audience with your favorite celebrity, or finally receiving an invitation to an event that you’ve always wanted to attend. Imagine the excitement and the spectacle. Although the very best rendering of celebration here on earth certainly pales in comparison to the actual experience of Heaven, it’s one that helps me to grasp the incredible eternity that awaits us: that God himself would invite us to his party and that he would sit across from us and eat with us.

[Kristin vanEyk lives in Kentwood, MI where she attends Encounter Church with her husband Dirk, and two kids, Lily and Colin. Kristin teaches high school English and otherwise passes the time reading, writing, running, and enjoying all that Michigan's West Coast has to offer.]