A New View of Heaven
When I was a child, growing up in a very conservative church, I was taught that heaven--which was most certainly a place--was the reward for those who had accepted Jesus into their lives. The only point up for debate was whether babies who died before the "age of accountability" would make it in. Occasionally someone voiced a question about the fate of non-Christian people, but ordinarily that was dismissed with a hopeful remark about someday "winning their hearts for Christ." In short, all I knew for sure was that I wanted to end up in heaven.

Over the years, though, I came to think of heaven in a very different way -- not as a place, but as corollary of who God is. The issue ceased to be "Who's going to heaven?" and became instead "Can I trust God with my self?" To believe in heaven as Jesus described it -- as the dimension in which one encounters God face-to-face; as a state that is "very near," or even "among us"; as the fruition of God's good will for all of creation -- is to abandon our concern about who will be there. It is also to realize that regardless of what heaven is like, we can be confident that in God's hands we are safe.

--Susan Hanson
from "Signposts Daily Devotions"

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