Skin Ministries

I’m not sure I want to go to heaven. Not that I don’t want to go to heaven, because I do. Let me try to explain. It might not help, but here goes nothing.

First, there are some people I don’t want to spend eternity with in heaven. If the curmudgeons I know here and now are going to be that same in heaven, count me out. As long as the mansion with many rooms doesn’t have us on the same floor and I don’t have to sit next to them at the dinner table; that might be okay. If we’re neighbors, forget it. They might feel the same about me.

There’s already tension because they believe I don’t pray or preach right and I don’t believe the right things the right way. Why would I want to aggravate the situation by living next to them in heaven?

Besides, what if they’re right? It would really bother me to have to listen for all of eternity about how they were right about Bible translations or that hymns are superior to everything else. Besides, I want to be the one that shouts, “HA! See?! I told you I was right!” If they are right, I don’t get to do that, they do. That would be unbearable.

Also, I think there will be more people in heaven than they do. One theologian said, “If God wants all to be saved, why can’t I?” That doesn’t mean that I think everyone will be there. I guess I just want the perfect sacrifice of Jesus to be the admission ticket to heaven and not my perfect theology. Does that make sense?

Finally, I guess the biggest reason I don’t want to go to heaven is I don’t want to live some place where we all wear white robes, play harps, and hang out in the clouds all day. I like trees and grass and flowers.

That’s not saying that I don’t want to live some place better. You may have noticed that this world is messed up. Have you ever watched a National Geographic movie where a lion kills a gazelle? As a kid I thought that that was just terrible…and horrifying. It was wrong and Nature was stupid. As an adult I just learned that’s the way the cookie crumbles…or the gazelle stumbles…and is eaten. People are killed, kidnapped, trafficked, blown up, and worse all the time.

Maybe that’s why some place other than here seems so inviting. Maybe we believe that heaven, to be heaven, has to be some place that isn’t earth or like earth.

The biblical writers describe it differently. They describe the world as being put back in order. Isaiah writes, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. ⁷ The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. ⁸ The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.” Isaiah 11.6-8

John writes in Revelations, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21.3-4 Emphasis Mine.

When you talk about heaven and you are talking about a world without sin, greed, envy, hatred, war, racism, injustice, poverty, hunger, and disease you can count me in. If you are talking about a place where we see and love each other like God sees us and loves us, I’m in.

Can you imagine a world like that? That would be heaven! That’s where I want to be.

So, I have to let God get me ready for that place. I don’t know what that looks like for you. For me, it has a lot to do with learning to love God and loving my neighbor as myself. I also need to learn to take the plank out of my own eye before removing the speck from anyone else’s eye.

When I get that, I will be far more ready for heaven than I am now. What about you?

First off, let me simply and clearly state that I hold my beliefs because I think they are right. For most of what I believe, I find support in Scriptures. I hold my beliefs because they make sense to me. Much of what I believe is culturally conditioned and should be challenged, but I don’t always see it. When it comes to the beliefs of others, I have to admit that if I don’t like the person, I don’t like their beliefs. Even more true is that if I don’t like the belief, I don’t like the person.

Second, the beliefs I hold help me make sense of my world. They help me better understand why things are the way they are. They help me navigate life. Sometimes my beliefs change because I have new information. My beliefs have changed over time. Injury, loss, heartbreak, revelations, relationships, and other factors have broadened my field of vision and I have changed.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t have firm beliefs. In fact, many of my beliefs have become solidified and far less open to change. If anything, I guess I would say that the list of things I would die for, or even argue about, has gotten much smaller over time.

One of the key factors in helping shape my beliefs has been building relationships with people different than myself. It is really easy to have an opinion about someone when I don’t know that person. It is easy to dislike a caricature of someone rather than the real person.

It is easier to hold onto my beliefs if I don’t know anyone that is different from myself. It is much more comfortable for me to speak with people that all hold a similar political or economic viewpoint, or a religious point of view. There is friction when I share my beliefs and find out that the other persons beliefs are different from mine.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27.17

A knife is sharpened by friction. The rough edges are removed and the blade becomes sharp. It is able to do what it does with much less force because it has been sharpened. That is how loving each other is accomplished. We rub each other the wrong way.

If I am going to love other people the way Jesus loved me, it will be because friction was a part of the mix. It doesn’t mean compromising my deeply held beliefs. All I ask in these discussions is that they try to understand my beliefs. They don’t have to agree with them.

That is a two way street. Do I understand why they believe the things they believe? In the end of the whole shebang am I willing to agree to disagree?

In the process of my discussions and humanizing other people despite our differences, I believe I become more like Jesus. I know that I have become more loving of those that are radically different then me.

One final note: friction creates heat and that heat can become intense and uncomfortable. Don’t think that the process of becoming like Jesus is easy. Worth it? yes. Easy? No.

What do you think?