Thoughts of Heaven

This afternoon I had the privilege of going over to a friend’s house with Brian Hogan, our worship pastor, for an hour of singing. Our friend, Jim, is going through the stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and is currently confined to a wheelchair and needs some assistance with breathing; as he pointed out, it will only be a matter of time before the Lord calls him Home.

Jim had prepared a list of his favorite hymns for us to sing, and also provided us with an outline - an outline of his funeral service. While initially it was very sobering, looking at that sheet of paper, after we had been there a little while and had sung through a few hymns together, it became readily apparent that Jim wasn’t preparing this in some sort of fatalistic, ‘it’s-going-to-happen-so-I-better-be-prepared’ sort of way. Instead, he was putting such careful thought into it because he wanted it to be a celebration of what the Lord had done in his life, and how the Lord wants to work in the lives of everyone who attends that service, whenever it happens.

After singing through such great hymns as ‘How Great Thou Art,’ ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness,’ ‘Draw Me Nearer,’ Brian made a keen observation - in some many of the great hymns, no matter what the overall topic, the hymnwriters seemed to point their thoughts toward heaven. And he’s right - when I looked at the words of the final stanzas of these hymns, they do point to heaven:

How Great Thou Art

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart…

Great is Thy Faithfulness

…strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…

Draw Me Nearer

There are depths of love that I cannot know till I cross the narrow way,
there are heights of joy that I may not reach till I rest in peace with thee.

These hymn writers had their theology right! Yes, we need to know that God is great, He is faithful, and we need to stay close to Him, but most importantly, we need to point others to Him, so that they can also join in the joy of heaven that we as believers are assured of. 

All I know, is that after spending an afternoon with Jim and seeing how he is living out ‘thoughts of heaven’ in his own life, I am more convicted than ever of how much I need to show Christ living in me to those I know, and trust that God can use me to draw them to Himself, and to their own hope for heaven.