{"id":5477,"date":"2026-06-02T07:51:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T11:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5477"},"modified":"2026-06-02T07:51:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T11:51:43","slug":"heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/02\/heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>

A few years ago, Stephan Pastis \u2013 creator of the syndicated cartoon strip Pearls Before Swine<\/em> \u2013 depicted his gentle-hearted character Pig in a theology classroom.

His assignment? \u201cDefine heaven.\u201d

Pig submits this answer: \u201cAll the dogs I\u2019ve ever owned rush out all at once and start licking my face as I laugh uncontrollably.\u201d The theology prof reads Pig\u2019s paper, then turns to his assistant and sighs, \u201cI think technically I have to pass him.\u201d

Everybody has their own ideas about heaven.

Since we\u2019re talking about the ultimate destination for God\u2019s people, most of us have spent at least a little bit of time wondering what it might be like.

When Maria Shriver was married to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, she chose to write a short book called What\u2019s Heaven<\/em>? Her thoughts were prompted by the questions her children, nieces, and nephews asked her upon the death of their great-grandmother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Shriver writes:

\u201cHeaven is somewhere you believe in\u2026 It\u2019s a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk to other people who are there. At night you can sit next to the stars, which are the brightest of anywhere in the universe\u2026

\u201cIf you\u2019re good throughout your life, then you get to go to heaven\u2026 When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you up to heaven to be with him\u2026 [And Grandma is] alive in me\u2026 Most important, she taught me to believe in myself\u2026 She\u2019s in a safe place, with the stars, with God and the angels\u2026 She is watching over us from up there\u2026\u201d

Shriver\u2019s book became\u00a0a bestseller. A number of readers have been inspired by her words.

In case you\u2019re wondering where her ideas might be found in Scripture, the answer is, \u201cNowhere.\u201d

In his book Surprised by Hope<\/em>, British theologian N.T. Wright observes, \u201c[Shriver\u2019s book] is more or less exactly what millions of people in the Western world have come to believe, to accept as truth, and to teach their children.\u201d

The public imagination has somehow managed to make heaven seem boring \u2013 something like a weekend retreat that has gone on way too long. Traditional hymns play on a continuous loop, theological seminars address our most vexing questions, and everyone strums harps on fluffy clouds while admiring favorite constellations. \u00a0

Forever.<\/em>

Quite a few of us, if we were being entirely honest, would rather enter Pig\u2019s paradise of being gang-tackled by every pup we have ever known and loved.

What exactly do we learn about heaven on the pages of the Bible?

One of the jarring discoveries that awaits first-time readers is that Scripture says almost nothing about \u201cgoing to heaven when we die.\u201d

The final chapters of the Bible, in fact, assert that God\u2019s people don\u2019t leave earth and go to heaven. Instead, heaven comes to us. The New Jerusalem (symbolic of God dwelling with his people) descends to earth (check out Revelation 21 and 22).

For centuries, Christian preachers and teachers in the West (not to mention a great many artists) have strongly implied that heaven is a place \u201cup there,\u201d while hell is an abode \u201cdown there.\u201d From a biblical perspective, however, it\u2019s more accurate to describe heaven not as a location but simply as God\u2019s domain.

During Bible times, rabbis declared that reality was comprised of \u201cthree heavens.\u201d The first heaven is the atmosphere that surrounds us \u2013 the air we breathe and the weather outside our windows. The second heaven is the realm of the sun, moon, and stars \u2013 the astronomical domain or \u201couter space\u201d that we observe when we look up.

The third heaven \u2013 which the apostle Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 \u2013 is the dwelling place of God.

Where is God right now? He\u2019s ruling the cosmos in the invisible world \u2013 a fundamental aspect of reality that is currently invisible to human eyes.

And where is this invisible world? We have good reasons to believe it is always here amongst us.

The opening of the Lord\u2019s Prayer, which Jesus teaches his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13, is traditionally rendered, \u201cOur Father, who is in heaven.\u201d The underlying Greek of that second phrase is en tois ouranois<\/em>, literally \u201cin the heavens.\u201d

Most scholars agree that Jesus isn\u2019t instructing his followers to address a deity who is somewhere far off, tucked away in a corner of the cosmos. Rather, the thrust of his opening words is, \u201cOur Father, who is right here with us\u201d \u2013 a perspective that has the potential to revolutionize our thoughts and feelings at the beginning of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.

So, where do we \u201cgo\u201d when we die?

The Bible is surprisingly shy about providing details. Medieval paintings depicting men and women ascending into banks of clouds have no doubt colored our imaginations. What we can know with certainty is not the what<\/em> or the where<\/em> of heaven, but the who<\/em>. \u201cToday you shall be with me<\/u><\/em> in Paradise,\u201d Jesus says to the thief on the cross. In the next world, we shall be with our Savior and each other.

If God\u2019s domain is the invisible world that is right here with us, then our experience of death may actually be like stepping from one room to another.

The curtains are suddenly pulled back, and we are finally and fully able to grasp that we have always been in God\u2019s presence. He has always been nearby.

Heaven, someone has observed, is a place of \u201cno mores.\u201d There will be no more tears. No more pain. No more sorrow (Revelation 21:4).

We also have every reason to believe that \u201cno more\u201d will also apply to our sense of disappointment. Note Paul\u2019s stirring words in Ephesians 3:20: \u201cNow to him who is able\u00a0to do immeasurably more than all we ask\u00a0or imagine, according to his power\u00a0that is at work within us\u2026\u201d

We may have deep hopes and vivid imaginations when it comes to heaven.

But what God will actually provide will surely top them all.

None of us will be disappointed \u2013 even if we don\u2019t get to sit next to the brightest stars.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here A few years ago, Stephan Pastis \u2013 creator of the syndicated cartoon strip Pearls Before Swine \u2013 depicted his gentle-hearted character Pig in a theology classroom. His assignment? \u201cDefine heaven.\u201d Pig submits this answer: \u201cAll the dogs I\u2019ve ever owned rush out all at once and start licking my face as… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[450,36],"class_list":["post-5477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-heaven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5479,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477\/revisions\/5479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}