Thoughts on Eternity
I have taken on the responsibility of leading a small group study along the content of Joni Tada's video series on Heaven, and this has led me to some reflections.
Joni is one of my heroes, so nothing in this should be seen as negative towards her in any way. If a person does, he/she is looking for an argument and totally missing the point. But it occurred to me that Joni is a good one to talk about heaven because she is so limited in a physical way. As a quadriplegic (for over 40 years--unimaginable!), she is in constant awareness of how much she cannot do. We do not live that way--we think we are capable of just about everything.
It's a poor comparison, but her inabilities in reference to our own physical mobility are an analogy of ours to God's, or to what we might be in eternity. We do not desire heaven because we cannot imagine an existence better than this. Joni, who lived "normally" until she was 17, has memories of a different life, of an athletic, healthy, moving life.
We do not have memories of another life because this is all we've ever known, but is not what we will know (thinking we were in heaven before birth is a Platonic idea, not a Christian one). We see through a mirror "darkly"--a cracked and dirty mirror--but then face to face.
Joni is one of my heroes, so nothing in this should be seen as negative towards her in any way. If a person does, he/she is looking for an argument and totally missing the point. But it occurred to me that Joni is a good one to talk about heaven because she is so limited in a physical way. As a quadriplegic (for over 40 years--unimaginable!), she is in constant awareness of how much she cannot do. We do not live that way--we think we are capable of just about everything.
It's a poor comparison, but her inabilities in reference to our own physical mobility are an analogy of ours to God's, or to what we might be in eternity. We do not desire heaven because we cannot imagine an existence better than this. Joni, who lived "normally" until she was 17, has memories of a different life, of an athletic, healthy, moving life.
We do not have memories of another life because this is all we've ever known, but is not what we will know (thinking we were in heaven before birth is a Platonic idea, not a Christian one). We see through a mirror "darkly"--a cracked and dirty mirror--but then face to face.
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