Serious business
January 10, 2006
“Joy is the serious business of heaven.” C.S. Lewis
When I read the book of Revelations, I see that there’s so many descriptions of what I suppose is heaven. Well it seems like in heaven what usually goes on are things like this:
- People bow down in awe of God.
- People sing a lot.
- People cheer.
The quote by C.S. Lewis reminded me a bit of the book of Revelations and what’s important in heaven. Joy is important. Happiness. No tears. Fun. Love. Acceptance. Lack of rigidity. Flowing actions. Transparency. Intuition. Embracing God. Holiness.
It says that in this “new city” the streets are of gold (which if we were to take literally sounds like a terrible idea). I wouldn’t want to walk on gold! I love dirt roads and grass. Gold is cold, and I’m sure it would be a terrible material on which to walk on. No, streets of gold means that gold is of no worth over there. The things we cherish here on earth are not valuable there. Money, riches, stuff; just not worth a penny. Those things are the dirt of heaven.
Talking with my dad, he reminded me that the importance of that quote by Lewis is that we should not take it as something that’s going to happen “someday.” If we daily pray “thy kingdom come,” we are in a sense saying “may the things that are important in heaven be important to us here now.”
So that’s why we must think of good things. We must seek to be transparent. We must seek joy. We must do more singing and dancing (which seems to be a big deal in heaven) and try a bit harder to consider gold as the dust of the streets.
Dion Pugil\'s home in a Rock 
January 10, 2006 at 10:41 am
I love your thoughts here Gaston. Thanks for sharing them. I never thought about gold being the dirt of heaven before. Makes sense.
* goes off to think about this *
January 10, 2006 at 10:52 am
I’m glad I put that into your head. Just think about it. It’s all a symbol. Gold in heaven is worth as much as dirt is to us down here. It means nothing.
Thanks for stopping by.
January 10, 2006 at 7:57 pm
I didn’t remember the CS Lewis quote about joy being the serious business of heaven. That’s good!
And you’re dad’s right. Kingdom Come is about now as much as it is about the eternal future.
Love ya, man. Let’s pray for a visa!
January 10, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Yes bro. Someday I’ll ask for a VISA. Just not sure when. But at least now in the states I’ve got new friends I’ve got to visit. So I’ve got a reason.
: )
Love ya too. We’ll be seeing each other.
January 11, 2006 at 1:15 pm
i love this whole post and have come back to read it several times…
i especially love this: “So that’s why we must think of good things. We must seek to be transparent. We must seek joy. We must do more singing and dancing (which seems to be a big deal in heaven) and try a bit harder to consider gold as the dust of the streets.” i’ve heard some teachings by rob bell on this concept, and how he talks about that if we don’t have joy here, and we don’t practice having a good time while we’re on earth, what makes us think we’re going to enjoy it when we’re in heaven? like earth is our practice NOW! 🙂
and, yes, i agree with david…. we’re praying for your visa… want to meet you and Yeri! 🙂 if you don’t come here, we might all be forced to come there! 🙂
January 11, 2006 at 1:56 pm
oh, and p.s. i meant to say that i really like this picture…. did you take it??
January 11, 2006 at 2:03 pm
No, the photo was taken by a guy in Flickr. I waste lots of time checking pictures out in Flickr.
So I just outright stole it.
Well, yeah. We’ll be either going there or you guys coming here. lol
We’ll see what happens.
🙂