Words from our friend Farmer Girl, Erika DeWaard
(see links at bottom of blog)
Imagine you open your eyes, and for the first time in your entire existence, nothing hurts. There is no aching joint, no tired back, no headache lingering behind your eyes, no body reminding you that it has been injured or is getting older or simply didn’t get enough sleep. But it goes much deeper than physical pain. There is no anxiety sitting somewhere in your chest. No part of your mind is quietly running through tomorrow’s problems. You aren’t wondering what time it is or what you forgot to do or what bad news might be waiting when your phone rings.
For the first time you can remember, you are completely, absolutely safe. Not safe because you locked the door. Not safe because somebody strong is nearby. Not safe because you have a plan for what you will do if something goes wrong. Safe because nothing can go wrong here. There is no predator. No violence. No person with evil intentions. No darkness hiding something you should fear. No disease quietly growing inside someone you love. No death waiting somewhere in the future. Nothing is going to happen when you let your guard down, so for the first time in your life, you actually can.
And then you look around, and I don’t know exactly what heaven will look like because Scripture doesn’t answer every question we have about it, but Revelation gives us glimpses, and even John seems to reach the limits of human language trying to describe what he sees. There is light everywhere, except eventually you realize you cannot find the source you would expect. There is no sun hanging overhead. There is no moon waiting for night because there isn’t going to be a night. The city doesn’t need either of them because “the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” Revelation 21:23.
Think about actually standing somewhere illuminated by the glory of God. Everything you have ever seen was visible because sunlight bounced off it and reached your eyes, and now you are standing somewhere creation itself is illuminated by its Creator. There is a river, “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal” Revelation 22:1, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Beside it stands the tree of life, the same tree humanity lost access to all the way back in Genesis, and suddenly you realize the story has brought you all the way around. Humanity once stood with God in a garden and lost access to the tree because sin entered the world, and now here you are at the other end of Scripture looking at it again. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. The curse that has followed humanity through every generation, through pain and thorns and sweat and disease and war and graves and every cemetery you have ever driven past, is gone. Not reduced. Not temporarily held back. Gone.
Then you begin to notice the people, and there are more than you could possibly count. Every direction you look, people. Different faces, different languages, people from places you knew and places you had never heard of, people who lived during your lifetime and people who walked the earth thousands of years before you were born, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” Revelation 7:9.
Suddenly all those names you have spent your life reading on thin Bible pages belonged to actual people who are now standing somewhere in the same enormous multitude as you. Abraham wasn’t just a chapter in Genesis. Moses wasn’t just the guy in Exodus. Ruth wasn’t just four chapters tucked between Judges and Samuel. David was real. Peter was real. John was real. Paul was real. The thief who hung beside Jesus and heard Him promise paradise was real. And beyond the names you recognize are millions upon millions you don’t, believers whose names never appeared in a history book, Christians who died without the world noticing, people who quietly followed Jesus in places and centuries you knew almost nothing about. Nobody here is trying to be important. Nobody is wondering whether the person beside them is better than they are. Nobody is fighting to be noticed. Nobody is trying to prove they deserve to be here because everyone knows exactly why they are here.
Jesus.
Then you hear something, and at first maybe you think it is thunder. Except it keeps building until you realize you are hearing voices. So many voices that your mind couldn’t possibly separate them. Revelation describes the sound of a great multitude as “the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder” Revelation 19:6. Imagine standing inside that sound. Not listening through church speakers. Not standing in a congregation of two hundred people or even a stadium of seventy thousand. This is a multitude you cannot count, and beyond them are angels, myriads upon myriads and thousands upon thousands, and they are not the cute little babies with wings we somehow turned angels into. They are angels who have stood before God, and now all of those voices are joining together in worship. You don’t merely hear it. You feel it. It rolls through everything like thunder, and for once there is no distracted mind wandering halfway through the song, no person glancing at a clock, no wondering what you’re going to have for lunch afterward. Everyone there knows exactly why they are worshiping.
And then you see where everyone is looking.
There is a throne.
Suddenly the river and the multitude and everything else that overwhelmed you seconds ago almost disappear from your attention because there is Someone sitting on it. John struggled to describe what he saw. Jasper. Carnelian. An emerald-like rainbow around the throne. Lightning flashing from it. Thunder rolling from it. Before it is something like a sea of glass, like crystal. Around it are living creatures unlike anything you ever saw on earth, crying out, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” Revelation 4:8. There are elders who repeatedly fall down and cast their crowns before God, and imagine actually hearing golden crowns hit the ground because even a crown becomes meaningless when you are standing in front of the One who created the person wearing it. You spent your entire earthly life watching humans fight for power, status, money, followers, attention and control. Nations built monuments to rulers. People became famous and were treated like they were somehow larger than life. Governments rose and fell. Kings and presidents and dictators acted like the world belonged to them. And now you are standing before the throne of God, and every throne humanity ever built suddenly looks almost embarrassingly small.
And then you see Him.
Jesus.
I don’t know what that moment will feel like. I don’t think any of us possibly can. You have known Him for years without ever seeing His face. You talked to Him while driving. You prayed to Him lying in bed at night. You whispered His name when you were terrified. You read His words on pages. You sang songs about Him. You celebrated His birth every December and His resurrection every Easter. You asked Him questions and sometimes received answers and sometimes didn’t. You trusted Him through things that made absolutely no sense to you. There were times when He seemed so close you could almost reach out and touch Him, and there were other times when you wondered why He seemed so silent. You believed He was there when your eyes gave you absolutely no evidence that He was. You spent your entire Christian life talking to Someone you had never actually seen.
And now your eyes can see Him.
There He is.
The One you spent your entire Christian life talking to. The One who knew your name before your parents ever chose it. The One who knew every terrible thing you would ever do and went to the cross anyway. The One who heard every prayer you thought disappeared into the ceiling. The One who saw every tear you wiped away before anyone else noticed. The One who was there during the nights you were certain you were alone. The One who carried you through things you thought were going to break you. The One whose hands were pierced for you. The One who went into the grave and walked back out.
Jesus.
And suddenly faith isn’t faith anymore.
It is sight.
“They will see his face” Revelation 22:4.
His face. Actually think about that. The face John described as shining like the sun at full strength. The face Christians have spent two thousand years trying to imagine. You will see Him. And somehow, because everything broken has finally been made new, you will be able to stand there and look at Him…
Continued in next newsletter Oct 23rd.
Farmer Girl
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