The church is constantly being tempted to accept this world as her home... but if she is wise she will consider that she stands in the valley between the mountain peaks of eternity past and eternity to come. The past is gone forever and the present is passing as swift as the shadow on the sundial of Ahaz. Even if the earth should continue a million years not one of us could stay to enjoy it. We do well to think of the long tomorrow. - A.W. Tozer

I have heard the whispers of God, the still small voice in the silence. I have been battling depression in spurts over the last couple weeks, and more than once I have looked up to the Heavens and cried out, "God, why aren't you helping me?" Tonight I realize that God is not here to make life perfect for me on a sin-contaminated earth. He is far more interested in my development into a wonderful eternal being, and what development can be found apart from great trials and problems? I have a tendency to view my life as being one that will end in forty or so years, and I begin to feel panicky and restless, worrying about silly things that make no sense when all is said and done. I forget that this world is but a shadow of the next, a dream inside reality. I keep forgetting that everything here is but a colorless echo of what is to be found when I die.

God whispers to me, "You worry too much about the small things that don't really matter. You think you are being jipped because you don't have all the blessings you want. Please understand that many of those around you, in all the pleasures afforded them, are tasting the closest they'll ever get to Heaven; and you, in all your sorrows and depression, are tasting the closest you'll ever get to Hell. How could you ever think for a moment that I had abandoned you, forsaken you, left you for dead? How could you ever think that I want you to suffer in life? Please understand that you have a wonderful and marvelous life waiting for you, far better than you can hope for. You know a little of what it is going to be like; it is revealed through My Word. Do not work so hard at gaining earthly pleasures or earthly gains; it is all a shadow to be broken in the end. Strive after Me. Strive after life. Work hard at doing good, work hard at avoiding evil, pursue intimacy with Me in everything you do. Love others. Follow Me. In 200 years, you and everyone on the earth will be dead. Earthly gains will not matter. All that will matter is your pursuit of Me - or your lack of it."

Jonathan Edwards said that this life ought only be spent as a journey towards Heaven. He has a very good point, and God's been saying the same thing to me as He may have said to Mr. Edwards a long time ago. It is easy to see this present earth as our home, and it's easy to get concerned about the future, about all our problems, and forget that there is a much better and much more wonderful life waiting for us, where we will be rewarded for our intimacy with God. We need to understand this and do as Edwards - and God - commands us to: live life as a journey to Heaven.

If I were to walk outside and sit in the grass, I could complain and bicker and rant and rave about all my problems; but I have to realize that there will come a day when I can sit down, on the grass, right outside my window, when the old earth is gone and the New Earth exists, a time when I will wish I would've spent more time pursuing God and less time worrying about dingy earth life. Friends, there is coming a day when we will enter Heaven; and there is coming a day when the earth as we know it will be destroyed by fire and re-created, re-spun as a new creation. There is coming a day when this earth will be a place of radiant, undeniable joy. The day is coming so we must live our lives as a journey towards that day. What we do now - and don't do - will not be forgotten.