Longing for Heaven
This week some of us from our team have made a commitment to really seek after God’s heart in what he has spoken over us during our time here in Africa. The idea was to set aside time each morning and time to pray together in shifts through out the night to allow God space to really seal in us and engrave the things on our heart that he wants us to leave here with. Through out this week I have had some really special moments with God. Knowing that there is a big transition ahead followed shortly by several more big transitions makes spending this time with the Father of the utmost importance to me. I didn’t know what he wanted to seal on my heart. At the beginning of this week I couldn’t even sum up for you what God has shown me. But God spoke. He always does.
When my dad came here to Africa he brought with him a letter from my friend Emma. Emma is one of the most lovely women that I have ever had the pleasure to be in relationship with. She loves Jesus from the deepest part of her heart… and you only have to be around her for a moment to know the sincerity and the dedication that she loves her Jesus with. Philippians 4:8 says:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
This is Emma’s heart. Ever since I have known here she has talked about longing for heaven and wanting to be ‘In love himself’. In the letter she wrote to me it said this “…and it makes me homesick for heaven. I feel like you ache and long like I do and the aching and longing is never fun. I feel it is the most beautiful thing we can long for.” I remember reading this and feeling that I wish I could say that it was true of my heart too, but I wasn’t sure if I was looking to heaven in the same way that she described. I have read this letter several times since it was passed off to me, and have really thought a lot about this… about longing for heaven.
When I was 12 years old there was all the talk of the world ending because of Y2K. I remember hearing about so and so who thought that it was going to be the end and then so and so who thought the whole thing was a joke. I was so confused by all of it and I remember it really scared me. I still to this day am not sure why the world ending was ever in question during that time but I remember lying in bed at night praying that it wouldn’t. I didn’t want it to end… I remember asking God if he could just wait until I was older, until after I had gone to high school and after I had gotten married and had some kids. My twelve year old heart had its eyes only on this life. The New Year came and I was so relieved that life seemed as it was going to continue on. I think that for the last 10 years my heart has stayed in a similar place… wanting to live this life, loving God but not understanding what it looked like to look forward to what is coming. In these years I have fallen in love with Jesus and have come to know him in new and amazing ways… but there remained apart of me that wanted to hold onto the things of this world.
This trip something has been changing in me, and this week I was able to identify what my heart has been feeling all along. Here in Africa I have been exposed to a new kind of brokenness that I have not before seen. I don’t think that Africa is more broken than America, just broken in a different way, but here they don’t try to hide it the way we do in America. Living here you have no choice but to look it square in the eyes and over the last months it has torn me up. I have often found myself seeing things, getting upset and wondering, ‘Ok, God what the heck?’ It was hard for my heart to understand why things have to be the way that they are and why can’t it just be different. Why do kids have to be hungry and why are there little boys and girls growing up with out dads and moms? Why are there young women mourning the loss of their husbands and having to choose a life of prostitution in order to feed her 4 children? Why are old women left in houses that are falling apart being rained on as their bodies grow weak, and why has the love of Christ been removed from so many churches and replaced with religion? How has jealousy and greed and competitiveness come to divide so many in the body of Christ… why are we not living as one? Its questions like this that keep me awake at night… they are almost constantly on my mind… and I think about what it would look like to live with out these things. My heart is not ok with the way things are.
I have been having a really hard time sleeping, I lie down exhausted but my hearts brokenness wont allow my mind to slow down long enough to actually fall asleep. The other night I was too tired to even try to fight myself to sleep so after lying in bed for a while I went into the living room with my bible and turned on my music and just worshipped and spent time processing through journaling… and like I said… God showed up.
That night God showed me that what my heart was yearning for was in fact heaven. That the things that I see and that are just not right in my spirit… those are the things that God is in the process of reconciling back to him. He is not ok with these things too… and he is in the process of bringing it all back and will not relent until it is finished.
As followers of Christ God has invited us to be apart of this process of reconciliation:
2nd Corinthians 5:1-2, 8, 18-20
“For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked… Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him… All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.”
God is at work bringing his kingdom to completion here on earth. One day all things will be reconciled to him. It says in Revelation 21:3-5 talking about the new heaven and the new earth:
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.'”
That night God revealed to me that Heaven is what he has been writing on my heart here in Africa. I think that he brought me here to show me that this world isn’t enough, that this world is so very broken… The best way I can explain it is he has brought me here to SEE this world in a different way and in this he has lifted my eyes up to see him and see his plan of making all things new. He brought me here to invite me in a whole new way to partner with him in reconciliation.
It’s been quite the process… In Mexico we talked a lot about how Jesus was here on earth and he showed us what we are to do and what it looks like to really follow after him. During our time here God has shown me over and over that he is with me here now. I have gone back to Isaiah 30:19-21 more times than I could even count and through it he has been covering me in the truth that my Teacher hears me and he answers me and shows me which way to go. And now here at the end of my trip he has written Heaven on my heart… God’s kingdom coming. He was here, he is here now and he is coming. This morning while spending time with the Father, he was reminding me of these things that he has taught me and showing me the complete message that he has been leading me to. God speaks.
I think now I can actually say, “Yes Emma… I do long for Heaven.” God has shown me and my heart will no longer be satisfied in anything except to be In Love Himself.
(One side note… I was sharing this blog with Jess and she was talking to me about the whole decision I made to step out in trusting God during this season… if you don’t know what I am referencing I talk about it in the blog “Trust is an Action”. I thought God was wanting me to step in this trust to show me something completely different… but now I can see that he wanted me to step away from anything that I am attached to here on this earth so that he could bring me to this place of allowing God room to write Heaven on my heart. God is really cool. I knew he had something to say. AND I am really excited because I have been praying and praying asking God to show me the message he would have me to share during my three weeks with Team Barnabas this summer… and there it is, 1- He was here, 2- He is here now, and 3- He is coming. It’s really cool to see the way God brings everything back together.)
