thoughts on Heaven

Well, it's only been... 10 days since my last post? Yeah 10 days. Not too bad. Life has been pretty busy. School is going good, although I will admit there are a few students giving me some gray hairs. But that is expected, right? Debate team did MUCH better this past weekend with a few students moving on to the semi-finals. Very proud of them. They are currently working on their 3rd speech- a group speech. They love the fact that it's group work... because then they have an excuse to talk all class long. Haha! Speaking of school... here's a picture of MY classroom!!


So before I start blogging about what I actually wanted to blog about, here's a run down of my super-fun weekend:

Friday: Debate vs. Clear Lake. I got to drive the party bus (also known as a 15 passenger van). Takes me back to my Rock On days at PC (shout out to Tim Holms!).

Saturday: I GOT TO SLEEP IN! Holla! Then I went to U of H to take a test... but afterwards Daniel took me ice skating! Hooray! Is it possible to get worse at something? I do not remember being extremely bad at ice skating when I went soph year. Katie Holt- do you remember? Anyway. I was pretty much awful at ice skating but I blame the extremely wet ice. Seriously, it was a total melt down.

Sunday: church (have I mentioned how much I love my church?), then guess who came to visit?!? KATIE BUCHER!!


Love her. She drove down from C-Stat just to hang out with me. So blessed. We had a great time catching up. She's pretty much thebomb.com. Then I went to small groups where we planned the most ballin' party ever. And we took pictures (see below).

So that was my super-fun weekend. Now onto the original motivation for updating this blog....

So this book Crazy Love that I've blogged a few times about is still one of the best books I've read. If you haven't gotten a copy of it yet, GO NOW! It will change your life. Anyway, here is a portion of the book that we talked about for a while last night at small groups and has continued to be on my mind. It's from the book, but was actually taken from God is the Gospel by John Piper:

"The critical question for our generation- and for every generation- is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disaters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?"

AH! So tough, right? I'll be honest with you. My immediate reaction was "yeah, I just might be ok with that" and there is still a little part of me that could be. I've been letting this thought "marinate" in my mind. I think about all the good things it named, friends, food, activities I enjoy, etc. and think about how good those things are. Truly enjoyable because they are good. I've known a lot of good in my life, and rarely do I experience something good and think "wow God, thank you." Good is an everyday part of my life. I see good and become... desenitized? to it. I expect a day with at least a few good things. How can I so easily forget that every good thing in my life is because of God? It could not exist with out Him. Therefore a heaven with all the good things in my life could not possibly exists with out Him, right? But what if it could? What if a heaven could exisit with good but not with God? Would I be satisfied? I know my answer to this is no, but I'll be honest. It's easy to say yes. Good things in life are easy. We know how to enjoy. Living a life for the Almighty is hardwork, and I guess for me when I think of an eternity of worshiping God it could sound like work, or at least not as pleasurable as the good things I have come to expect in life. But heaven is going to be so much more than just worshiping God! I mean we will be in the presence of our Creator! We wont want to do anything but worship Him. Singing praises to Him will give us more pleasure than any good thing we could ever experience here on this earth. It will be so much better than a heaven with all our friends, no sickness, no conflict. It will surpass any good we could ever imagine. It will be... uh I don't even have the words. That's just how truly awesome it will be. So, could I be truly satisfied in a heaven like John Piper described? No. I certainly could not be satisfied.