Arrival

Heaven-
I think about Heaven a lot. Maybe you think that's weird, if you've been reading my blog for more than a post of two you've probably discovered I am weird, but I don't think it's weird. I think a lot about how it is going to be when I am face to face with my one True Love for the very first time. It gets me so pumped! What is it going to be like to be in His physical presence? I have been studying Isaiah during Wesley Hour (the new name for my morning devotion time named for John Wesley whose lack of wasting time with extra sleep has inspired me to try 6 hour nights for a few months, or forever, meaning wakey time is at 4:30). Isaiah 6 is about Isaiah's answer to the call to be God's messenger. Isaiah has a vision while he is in the temple. The temple is transformed into the throne room of God where the Lord is seated. Isaiah, knowing full well what would happen to him if he saw God, said:

"Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts."

Isaiah understood the weight of God's glory and righteousness was so heavy that anything unclean before it would parish. The next part of this passage is so beautiful. God provides provision for Isaiah but it's not like "Ok ok, i'll let it slide this time and you just won't die." No, that would go against the character of God. God doesn't make exceptions for sin, He doesn't break His own law. Instead this is what He does:

"Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said: Now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed and your sin is atoned for."

He removed Isaiah's wickedness! He provides sweet reconciliation to Himself for Isaiah. Just like Jesus did for me! So rad! And I just realized I'm getting away from my point… Re-grouping--- Ah, yes! My point! Once Isaiah was cleansed by the God via the coal He no longer feared that crushing weight of judgment before God's magnificent presence. Just like I no longer fear it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not underestimating the magnitude of God's brilliance and glory (well, I'm sure I am underestimating it) when I experience it in Heaven, I'm just not afraid of it. On the contrary, I'm super excited to experience it!

I know it's a movie with an animated mouse but Reepicheep in Voyage of the Dawn Treader brings me to absolute tears. like an absolute mess. Even just thinking about it right now my eyes are drowning. His zeal to cross over to Aslan's Country is so beautiful. He discards his sword, knowing he had been fighting in the name of his king, Aslan, knowing he had been a faithful servant to him, and knowing he will never need it on the other side of that glorious wall of water. This sword was incredibly important to him since he was such a small member of Narnia, he spoke of it like it was a part of him, but when the time came he tossed it aside like yesterdays garbage in the knowledge of what was ahead, and the sword of man, err umm, mouse, had no place there. He says

"While I may, I sail East in Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I row East in my coracle. When that sinks, shall I paddle East with my four paws. Then, when I can swim no longer, if I have not yet reached Aslan's Country, there shall I sink with my nose to the sunrise…"--- Reepicheep

My Epic destroys any sort of control over my emotions using a similar picture in their song Arrive:

Any day now I will leave the seas behind I will find You
I don't know yet what I'll see when I arrive but I will be with You
I lay Your promise like an anchor in the depths that my mind can't fathom
I hoist it up till it finds Your breath amongst the winds that I can't see and
It leads me on
And without fail
Calms each sea
For it blows truer and fiercer than gale

For endless might I've seen in You
Still this one thing You cannot do
You won't break Your word and leave Your sons to hell
You can't deny Yourself

All my hopes rest on the day when I see these tides realign
I'll keep my eyes on the horizon and my course set until then
But when Your new dawn outshines the old one I'll be looking up
And I'll leave my ship then and run the waves as they're rising up

And behold

You whom no eye could yet bare
Nor any mind yet conceive
And I'll take hold of You there
And then let go of belief

Somehow, made new
I'll be like You

A song begins
Without an end
"Beloved, behold
Forever"

I imagine my arrival into Heaven in similar terms… I feel like life on earth is like living under water. The breathing is difficult, but doable (it's a metaphor, stay with me), everything is seen as cloudy, or bubbly, you may get glimpses of something more clear on the horizon but then it's cloudy again. But then your feet finally touch something, and as you swim a little closer you realize, that's land! Your feet are touching land! Then you surface and take your first breath of real air "And behold! You whom no eye could yet bare, nor any mind yet conceive. I'll take hold of You there, and then let go of belief."

Also- God gifted us with the ocean so we could have so many beautiful allegories about Him and Heaven!

In Him,
~Jennanana
(LISTEN TO THE SONG!!!)
My Epic- Arrive- From the album Behold. Available now