My siblings and I grew up going to the shore every summer, specifically Long Beach Island. The reason we were so beyond fortunate to spend so much time there every year and see it as a second home was my grandparents, who had bought their house a while before I was born (which made the island a special place for my mom’s whole family). To make a long story short, my grandparents decided to sell the house in 2015, which we knew was the right thing for them to do, but it tore a hole in all of us to have to see the house go.
I found a way to be back at the shore for a while by working at the Bible conference on the island a few years in a row. Being back there in a way so different than what I was used to while still deeply loving what I did have there, was a strange instance that helped me realize I didn’t truly know how deeply I valued and was impacted by what I used to have until I’d lost it. One morning while I was walking to the laundry room for my shift I thought about heaven, and how when I was younger, I had a hard time understanding it. It had scared me a little that it was just…forever. Little me would wonder things like, what would we even do? Won’t I get bored? I was never really able to identify with things I’d read in the Bible about “yearning for Heaven”, like Paul would often write about: “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8, ESV). I just couldn’t wrap my mind around longing for a place I didn’t fully understand and by all accounts I’d read sounded intimidatingly…boring. And I felt guilty about it! I wanted to understand the glory of this promised heaven and yearn for it like Paul did, and like I knew Christians were able to (my grandmother, who sold the house, is the best example I can think of when it comes to longing to be with the Lord in heaven despite knowing the good things here on earth).
I thought about my boss who was celebrating her 40th year at the conference and how it was also hard to imagine doing the same job for 40 years. I wondered if I’d be content doing what I was doing then for 40 years, too. I figured I would, because everything always seemed so peaceful and perfect at the shore, and I loved that season and was so content with where God had led me. I’d never thought this before about any circumstance until then. And this connected some dots for me: if I could imagine enjoying this earthly life for “forever,” I have to trust God’s Word when He assures us heaven is truly a place where there is no sin, no suffering; only His perfection and presence with us (Rev. 21:3-4); a place we can look forward to as we wait here for the new heaven and earth (2 Peter 3:13). I don’t want to be so content with my earthly life that I have no care to look forward to God’s intended perfect eternity.
This year we brought our baby to the shore for the first time, and I wasn’t expecting to be hit with so much emotion just seeing her in the places I spent so much time at as a child, seeing her just absolutely lose her mind having so much fun at the beach. Digging in the sand, begging to go back in the water, pure excitement on her face as she waved hello to every seagull and plane that flew by. It was a dream come true to see my little girl love it as much as me! I started to see the same parallel I previously drew in her context: if the shore has become an allegory for the perfection of heaven for me, and I want so badly to show my daughter the peace and beauty and rest and fun and healing and connection that I found there, I need to do the same with showing Christ to her as well. She experienced so much of the island because I made every effort to get her to the beach, in the water, experiencing the wildlife, seeing the sights. And I can do even more of that as she grows older too. So can I do the same with God? Can I make every effort to get her to church, to read her the Word, to teach her Jesus’ teachings in her every day? In order to truly understand what God has in store for eternity, we need to draw closer to him and elevate him above all else. Matthew 6:19-24 instructs us to “lay up treasures in heaven” and teaches we cannot serve two masters for our human inability to be devoted to more than one; so we must make the righteous decision to serve God rather than earthly idolatrous things (v. 24). The things I value most are the ones I put my time, energy, thought, money, etc. into most. God must be the master I serve with my time, energy, and resources, and I must invest in my relationship with Him and know his teachings (lay up treasures in heaven) in order for my heart to be focused on heaven and my “whole body be filled with light” (v. 22). In the same way I made my best efforts to show the island to my daughter so she’d know it as well as I do—out of my deep love for it—I need to make the same effort to invest in my own and her relationship with Christ and His Word out of my deep love for Him. This laying up of treasures in heaven will be what truly teaches me to understand and center my heart permanently on the promise of heaven.
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