Corrie ten Boom, Her Story (continued)
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven .... For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew 6:20, 21
21. Where Is Heaven?
HAPPINESS IS NOT dependent on happenings, but on relationship in the happenings.
My father taught me this when I was just a child. He often told me of the early days of his marriage. He had opened a small jewelry store in a narrow house in the heart of the Jewish section of Amsterdam. Poor Mother! She had dreamed of a home with a little garden. She loved beautiful things and spacious views. "I love to see the sky," she often said. Instead, she found herself on a narrow street, in an old house—the kind with only a single room on each story—with worn-out furniture which they had inherited from Grandmother. Yet they were both happy, not because of the circumstances but because of the relationships in the circumstances.
There, in Amsterdam in that narrow street in the ghetto, they met many wonderful Jewish people. They were allowed to participate in their sabbaths and in their feasts. They studied the Old Testament together and, on occasion, even the New Testament.
I have remembered, many times, the lessons I learned from my father about happiness and happenings. But never was it so clear as when | was in Korea, many, many years later.
I had been in the Orient for three months, spending much of the time in Korea. While there I spoke in many meetings in schools, orphanages, children's homes, and churches. One day, after I had spoken in a university, a theological student came to me. I had never seen such gloom on the face of a man who said he wanted to be a minister of the risen Christ.
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"Why is it that you are so full of unhappiness?" I asked.
"T have lost my way," he said sadly. "When I first became a Christian my pastor taught me the Bible is true. In those days I had great happiness. But now Iam studying the famous scholar, Rudolph Bultmann, who says our Bible is full of myths and fables. I have lost my way and no longer know where heaven is."
I was angry. It did not seem right that the simple boys of Korea had to struggle through this horrible theology. They studied many hours at the universities, going to school twice as long as students in America, yet because of what they studied, they often lost their faith. I answered his question about heaven by telling him what I had just seen and heard the day before while driving through the countryside.
There I saw the poorest shack I had ever seen. It was a tiny lean-to, made from materials collected from the garbage heap—pieces of cardboard, tin cans which had been smashed flat, old boards... . As we drove past, though, I heard the beautiful voice of a woman singing. Seldom, even in the concert halls of Europe, had I heard such a sweet voice. We stopped the car and listened, for it was like the song of a skylark.
I said to the missionary who was traveling with me, "Do you know that song?" "Yes," she said, "it says, Where Jesus is, 'tis heaven there." Oh, how my heart leaped for joy as I heard this beautiful song coming from such a poor place. It is one thing to hear such a song ina dignified church, or pouring through the speakers of an expensive stereo set. But when one hears it coming from the poorest shack in the midst of such poverty, then it means something else.
I looked at the young theological student before me. "Jesus said, 'The Kingdom of heaven is within you' (Luke 17:21). Bultmann is wrong and Jesus is right. Heaven is not a myth or fairy story: heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. Theology in the hands of the Holy Spirit is a beautiful science. But in the hands of unbelievers it is death. If you want to find where heaven is, get out of your stuffy classroom and go back out into the countryside. Listen to the simple faith of those who read only the Bible and trust only in God, not in material things. What do they care if some theologian says that heaven is a fable. They have found Jesus, and where Jesus is, 'tis heaven there."