I've been thinking recently about heaven, specifically about what it's going to be like in terms of forgiving other believers and being forgiven by them. I know that for about the first millenia or two, we'll be so mesmerized by the glory of Christ that we will probably barely recognize that there's any else even there in heaven, but I'm sure we'll eventually find a way to start finding acquaintances who are there.
And I wonder about the dynamics of our "bodies" up there, and how we'll see each other. I imagine we'll be fully naked, body and spirit, fully exposed to each other in some sense, with absolutely nothing to hide from our hearts.
And I imagine conversations with brothers and sisters in Christ who, on earth, deeply wounded us. They perhaps judged us, or wrote us off, or hurt us because someone else hurt them, or just plain acted selfishly. And I imagine standing there, feeling the waves of glory pulsating around us, more conscious than ever before of the depths to which we had fallen before Christ saved us, and of the wonder of our salvation through Christ's death on the Cross.
And I imagine standing there, somehow crying tears of joy, seeing everything made right by God. As if both I and the other person had ESP, not really, but maybe, but at least both knowing something of what the other was thinking.
And it would no longer be thoughts like the ones we had on earth, like, "You hurt me so, so badly," or, "Why didn't you come back to the table to at least talk and try to work things out?" or, "Why did you treat me as if I were worthless?"
Instead, it would be wave after wave of understanding. It would be understanding the depths to which our wounds in childhood affected us all into adulthood. It would be understanding how our pride and self-protective measures kept us from truly living, despite claiming all our lives that an abundant life is what we truly desired more than anything else. It would be understanding that somehow God used our selfish, sinful choices, including being spiteful and writing other people off, and somehow turned it to glory.
I'm sure I can't even imagine how it will really be, but I like to try all the same. I really look forward to understanding forgiveness, and human nature, and the Gospel, to the depths God will reveal them to us in eternity. I look forward to being more able than ever to forgive--even the really big things that people have done, even the dreams they tried to kill. And I look forward to feeling forgiven by others as well.
I look forward to us all looking at each other as if to say, "Yeah, I know I shouldn't have done that," and the other responding, "Yeah, and I know I shouldn't have such and such in return." And at the same time fully realizing that whether our offenses were small or big, once or repeated over a lifetime, that we're now new creations in full. We knew we had been declared new creations when we were still on earth, but now we've come into the full realization of it. We feel the compulsion to ask each other forgiveness to make things right, but there isn't even the hint that anyone will ever get defensive or walk away or not forgive each other. In heaven, everyone will come back to the table, reconcile, talk it through, hear each other out fully, and act and react in love. No one will write other people off, for any reason, ever, and those who did in life will be joined back together, if they are both saved.
I look forward to the really long, tearful hugs. Christians who threw us away. People whom we may have tried to hurt back. Hugging. Embracing. Crying and laughing at the same time. People who wouldn't talk to us in life, or vice versa, now embracing each other with tears of joy that we stand both redeemed and reconciled to both God and each other. Smiling at each other--both of us truly, deeply happy.
I really look forward to reconciliation. I hate broken relationships, and I know God does, too. I look forward to the joy, the sweeping sense of peace, knowing that everything truly is okay, and from then on, always will be, that forgiveness will be pervasive and ubiquitous, and will help usher us all onto the heavenly dance floor, where the party will truly begin.
I look forward to living today in light of that future glory.
