To Be A Child

When I got up this morning I saw a book lying in my living room called Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back.  So I picked it up and started to read, hearing from a young child, full of life and fun and mischief and wonder, the account of his experience leaving his body during an emergency appendectomy, and being brought into heaven itself!

Now, if you're like me, when you read something like this it is so easy to try and rationalize and evaluate the claims that are made.  It's not an easy thing to believe--as much as we'd like to say that we believe so many things about Jesus, salvation, heaven, etc.  But when someone tries to tell us that they have had a first-hand experience--well, that's a different story.  All of a sudden my defenses kick in, because, after all, this account is not THE AUTHORITATIVE WORD OF GOD!!

OK, fine, but maybe the words of a child are enough.

Colton Burpo (yes, kind of unfortunate!) was just a few years old when he was taken into heaven.  His dad is a pastor and recounts the many different things that his son explains he saw during his "time" in heaven (time seems to function differently there).

What I think struck me the most is that everything that is described lines up with what is revealed in scripture--it is just that it is so vivid and so. . . . .intimate and real.  That's the part I love the most--that God is real and that He has such an expectancy of being with us one day, with no "curtain" separating us any longer.

I long for this too, though I often forget. . . .

At one point Colton is asked if he knows why Jesus died on the cross.  In his matter of fact way, he says that he knows exactly why because Jesus told him that he wants people to see his dad!  I love this!  It is so unchurchy, so unrehearsed, so unslick--just the real goods.  Jesus did what he did because he just wants us to meet his dad.

Yeah, that can go a long way as far as I'm concerned.

I think my heart today is that Jesus' dad would strip off the veneers of my thinking, of my beliefs, and allow me to see what's really important-- with the eyes of a child.

That would be enough.

BT