Lynne Baab

Drawing Near to God with the Heart: Longing for heaven

Thursday March 23 2017

In The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge discuss the significance of a healthy understanding of heaven. If we live as if this world is all there is, they write, we will place a burden on our experience here on earth that this world was never intended to bear. We will continually try to find heaven on earth, which is impossible, and “we will live as desperate, demanding, and eventually despairing men and women.”^[1]

Instead, if we can understand and rejoice in the truth that one day God will make all things whole, and that we will live in heaven in unblemished joy and contentment in God’s presence, our lives on earth will be transformed. This life is definitely not as good as it gets. The best is yet to come.

Mercifully, we get glimpses of heaven in this life. Imagine that a wonderful party is happening nearby, with the most luscious music in the world, and every now and then a bit of music escapes from the party and we get to enjoy it. In the same way, glimpses of heaven permeate our lives on earth. It takes time and effort and being present in each moment for us to be able to notice those glimpses, but the glimpses are worth any effort. They illuminate our lives and gladden our hearts.

Glimpses of heaven, when we can receive them and rest in them, nourish the heart and soul. Those moments of clear vision and certainty lift us up to God and illumine our daily lives. Seeking those glimpses is a worthy endeavor. We rejoice when our seeking brings us what we long for. We also need to grow in acknowledging that our lives on earth will be characterized much more by seeking than by finding.

C. S. Lewis, in both his fiction and non-fiction writings, helps us get in touch with our longing for heaven. Lewis describes the “lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off.”^[2] He believed this longing is one of the best things about our pilgrim state. In Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he used the word “joy” to describe the piercing longing, both bitter and sweet, that we experience when we remember a vivid memory or catch a brief glimpse of heaven. This kind of joy is distinct from pleasure or happiness, and it taps into the emptiness and spaciousness that Gerald May describes.

Lewis’ friend J. R. R. Tolkien explained this kind of joy as “a sudden and miraculous grace . . . beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”^[3] This joy is inextricably connected with our longing for heaven and our realization that this life is not all there is. Lewis reassures us:

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.^[4]

Lewis believed that our sense of exile is inseparable from our perception of beauty, which emphasizes again the significance of art, music, poetry, and all things that minister beauty to our hearts. As we accept our state of longing, and as we experience glimpses of beauty that remind us of heaven, our hearts will grow soft and receptive to the grace of God.

This is the seventh post in a series about Drawing Near to God with the Heart. Previous posts:

Introduction: Drawing near to God with the heart         
God woos us          
A journey with the Psalms           
Praying the Psalms       
God's presence through the Holy Spirit          
Facing the inner darkness         
Tears          
All will be well            

(The series continues next week with "What do you want?" Illustration by Dave Baab: Central Otago from a photo by Ian Thomson. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column. This post is excerpted from my book, A Renewed Spirituality: Finding Fresh Paths at Midlife, available in paperback here and on kindle here.)

[1] Curtis and Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997),179.
[2] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1980). 16.
[3] J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, ed. C. S. Lewis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981), 81.
[4] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, 16-17.T