Where Am I Going When I Die?

In the past few blogs, we've dealt with three of the major worldview questions: Where did I come from? What went wrong with the world? and Why am I here? The fourth question, Where am I going when I die? has poignant personal implications. This past weekend I watched the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards, who was buried next to her 16-year-old son, whom she had looked forward to seeing again in heaven. This weekend two friends of mine lost weeks-old babies. Most of us have someone who has gone before us with whom we want to reconnect in that life beyond our earthly dimension.

I had a vivid dream of heaven once. In fact, it was so vivid I swore it would change the way I lived my life, witnessed to others of God's love, and related to Him. And yet, when I hear of premature or untimely deaths, I forget the ecstasy of unconditional love in heaven and mourn with those who've experienced loss.

Layton Brooks was haunted by the specter of death. His father's untimely death had put the first chink in his relationship with God. Now the prospect of losing his mother gave him another stone to throw at his lop-sided view of a God who protects us from bad experiences. Losing Brianne would send him completely over the edge, lost in the morass faced by everyone who expects only good from God, never the bad. (See Job 2:10.)

If a person lives "right," Layton had concluded, God would come through for you. All of the points he'd earned through church services, Sunday School classes, and youth camps should count for something when God tallied the scorecard. "Stay out of trouble, and you'll be okay. Eat right, Exercise, floss. Be nice to people; they'll return the favor. That was the plan. When a person's faith is in a plan, it had better be a pretty good one because "the best laid plans of mice and men' ... well, they don't always work. Layton obviously placed faith in a plan that didn't work." (p. 92)

God's plan was to plant within us a longing for heaven—a deep knowing that this earth can't be all there is to life. The delights we experience here are brief foretastes of eternal delights that will fill all the voids, erase the pain, and heal the wounds of earth-bound living.

This life, while it has meaning and purpose, is preparation for life to come in heaven serving God without human limitations and completely free to worship Him in all His majesty and glory. PTL!