Sad Longing For Heaven

Just ask anyone who has lost someone dear to them how much more real Heaven is...Or ask them if they long for Heaven more now than before their loss. If you don't hear them groan, you will see it in their eyes. The longing for Heaven.

Our study this week brought greater clarity regarding the feeling we are all familiar with. The longing for something more that seems to linger even on the best of days. We savor the moments of life that ignite our hearts. The precious moments like the first wobbly steps our baby takes, or glimpsing the perfect fiery orb descending in colorful horizons at the close of day, or the magnificent Ocean waves rolling toward the sandy shore landing at our feet.

And still, on the other side of those glory moments, there it is. A feeling of wanting more.

And God created it that way. He doesn't want us to settle for less than Him. He knows we are too easily satisfied with inferior things. He knows we cannot even imagine what pure glory is like, and He is eager to show us. So he gives us the longing in our soul for His glory.

When we realize that, we can embrace the longing. He loves us so much He doesn't want us to settle for "here". His desire is that we will anticipate going there. His amazing love enables us to maintain joy in the midst of the inevitable broken and messy places we find ourselves in. 

Our life on earth is temporary. Aren't we seeing that now more than ever? As the storms of life rage, we can rejoice because we know Heaven is ahead and it is eternal!  This life is like a dot on a million mile string...

The pain of this life serves us. Just like pain in training serves the goal of an athlete, and pain in labor serves the birth of a baby, so pain in this life serves our life in Heaven. This world is not our home, we are just passing through. Heaven is on the other side, so keep your eyes focused on what is ahead and maintain your joy while you wait in hope for it!


Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.  For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) Romans 8:18-25 NLT (emphasis mine)