Chapter 9 Getting Ready for Heaven
Chapter 9
Getting Ready for Heaven
File this, Francie, and make copies of this letter, would you,” I said to my secretary without looking up from my desk. “And, oh yes,” I sighed, “would you please pull out the sofa bed one more time?”
“Are you serious? Again?”
“Again.” With that, my face flushed and my eyes became damp. For the fourth time that day, I needed to be lifted out of my wheelchair and laid down. I had to undress to readjust my corset—shallow breathing, sweating, and a skyrocketing blood pressure were signaling that something was either pinching, bruising, or sticking my paralyzed body. My secretary tissued away my tears and unfolded my office sofa bed.
As she shifted my body, examining my legs and hips for any telltale pressure marks or red areas, I stared vacantly at the ceiling. “I want to quit this,” I mumbled.
We couldn’t find anything wrong. She put my clothes back on, hoisted me into my chair, and stepped back.
I looked sheepish. “Where do I go to resign from this stupid paralysis?”
Francie shook her head and grinned. She’s heard me say it scores of times. It’s nothing new. My disability is, at times, a pain.
As she gathered the pile of letters off my desk, and was about to leave, she paused and leaned against the door. “I bet you can’t wait for heaven. You know, like Paul said, ‘We groan, longing to be clothed with a heavenly dwelling.’”
My eyes dampened again, but this time they were tears of relief and hope. “Yeah, it’ll be great.” I couldn’t return to my dictating. The verse kept sticking with me, and I whispered a prayer, “Yes, Lord, I do look forward to being whole, to having a body that will never know pain. But to be honest, what I really want is a new heart that doesn’t want to resign or quit.”
I sat and dreamed what I’ve dreamed of a thousand times: the hope of heaven. I jerked my will right side up, refocused my emotions, and realigned my thoughts. I mentally rehearsed a flood of other promises and fixed the eyes of my heart on unseen divine realities and future divine fulfillments. I zeroed in on a few heavenly coordinates to lift my sights above my physical pain: When we see Him we shall be like Him…The perishable shall put on the imperishable…the corruptible, that which is incorruptible…That which is sown in weakness will be raised in power…He has given us an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade…If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him.
It was all I needed. I opened my eyes and said out loud with a smile, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
The scene I described can sometimes happen two or three times a week. Physical affliction and emotional pain are, frankly, part of my daily routine. But I only stay me-centered long enough to release a few tears, blubber a few gripes, and that’s it. I learned long ago that self-pity can be a deadly trap, and so I avoid it like the plague. I quickly move upward and onward.
Hardships are God’s way of helping me to get my mind on the hereafter. And I don’t mean the hereafter as a death wish, psychological crutch, or escape from reality. I mean “hereafter” as the true reality. And nothing beats rehearsing a few time-honored, well-worn verses of Scripture if you want to put reality into perspective.
Every time my corset wears a wound in my side or I’m faced with a four-week stint in bed or I feel the stab of someone else’s pity, I look beyond the negatives and see the positives…
I recall that pilgrims aren’t supposed to feel at home on earth.
I set my heart and mind on things above and wait on the Bridegroom.
I remember the promise of a new body, heart, and mind.
I dream about reigning on earth and ruling in heaven.
I think about crowns and rewards and casting them all at Jesus’ feet.
When these Scriptures strike that resonant chord in my heart, I tune into the melody and hold myself in the state of listening to heaven’s music. Before I know it, the song lifts me, and I’m soaring on Spirit wings, breathing celestial air. I’m in heaven. It’s a glorious vantage point from which to look down on my pain and problems. The soul that mounts up to heaven’s kingdom cannot fail to triumph.
It’s odd that it took a wheelchair—something that bolts me to earth—to make me see the futility of fighting spiritual battles on the earthly plane. When I attempted to live on the same low level as my bolts, gears, wheels, and leather, I made blunder after blunder. I was powerless there until I shifted to a higher battleground and chose a different perspective.
Looking down on my problems from heaven’s perspective, trials looked extraordinarily different. When viewed from its own level, my paralysis seemed like a huge, impassable wall; but when viewed from above, the wall appeared as a thin line, something that could be overcome. It was, I discovered with delight, a bird’s-eye view. It was the view of Isaiah 40:31: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Eagles overcome the lower law of gravity by the higher law of flight, and what is true for birds is true for the soul. Souls that soar to heaven’s heights on wings like eagles overcome the mud of earth that keeps us stuck to a temporal, limited perspective. If you want to see heaven’s horizons, as well as place earth in your rearview mirror, all you need to do is stretch your wings (yes, you have wings, you don’t need larger, better ones, you possess all that you need to gain a heavenly perspective on your trials) and consider your trials from heaven’s realms. Like the wall that becomes a thin line, you are able to see the other side, the happier outcome.
That’s what happened to me that day in my office. I was able to look beyond my “wall” to see where Jesus was taking me on my spiritual journey.
Although paralysis has aided me in my pilgrimage, it has not made me automatically holy. You could say the same about your own suffering. Pain and problems do not make one instantly obedient. For me, it has taken time. Time, in more ways than one.
The View from the End of Time
Scripture mainly presents us with a view of life from the eternal perspective. Some call it “the heavenly point of view.” I like to refer to it as the “end-of-time view.” This perspective separates what is transitory from what is lasting. What is transitory, such as physical pain, will not endure, but what is lasting, such as the eternal weight of glory accrued from that pain, will remain forever. Everything else—numbing heartache, deep disappointment, circumstances that seem topsy-turvy—everything else, no matter how real it seems to us on earth, is treated as inconsequential. Hardships are hardly worth noticing.
The apostle Paul had this perspective when he said, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17). And regarding his own problems, he added, “I consider them rubbish” (Philippians 3:7).
Wait a minute. Did he say, “Troubles, light”? “Hardships, rubbish”?
The apostle Peter had this perspective too when he wrote to Christian friends being flogged and beaten. “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials” (1 Peter 1:6).
Rejoice? When you’re being thrown to lions? The Christians to whom Peter was writing were suffering horribly under Nero, the Roman emperor. Peter expected them to view their problems as lasting…a little while? What sort of wristwatch was he using?
This kind of nonchalance about gut-wrenching suffering used to drive me crazy. Stuck in a wheelchair and staring out the window over the fields of our farm, I wondered, Lord, how in the world can You consider my troubles light and momentary? I will never walk or run again. I will never use my hands. I’ve got a leaky leg bag…I smell like urine…my back aches…I’m trapped in front of this window. Maybe You see all of this achieving an eternal glory, but all I see is one awful day after the next of life in this stinking wheelchair!
I did not buy the heavenly point of view. My pain screamed for my undivided attention, insisting, “Forget the future! What’s God going to do now?” Time does that. It rivets your attention on temporal things and makes you live in the moment. And suffering doesn’t make it any easier. It tightens the screw on the moment, making you anxious to find quick fix-its or escape hatches. That’s what it was like as I pitied myself in my chair. When I read Romans 5:3, “rejoice in our sufferings,” my first thought was, Sure, God, I’ll rejoice the day You get me out of this thing! And if You don’t, what’s going on? Are You poking fun at my paralysis? Trying to convince me I’m in spiritual denial? That my hurt and pain are imaginary? When it came to my affliction being light and momentary, God was obviously using a different dictionary.
Years later the light dawned. The Lord hadn’t used a different lexicon when He picked words like “light and momentary” to define earthly troubles. Even if it meant being sawn asunder, torn apart by lions, or plopped in a wheelchair for the rest of one’s life. The Spirit-inspired writers of the Bible simply had a different perspective, an end-of-time view. Tim Stafford says, “This is why Scripture can seem at times so blithely and irritatingly out of touch with reality, brushing past huge philosophical problems and personal agony. But that is just how life is when you are looking from the end. Perspective changes everything. What seems so important at the time has no significance at all.”1
It’s a matter of perspective. “Therefore we do not lose heart,” 2 Corinthians 4:16 says. “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (v. 17). What could possibly outweigh the pain of permanent paralysis? The coordinates of the new perspective are found in the next verse, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (v. 18). The greater weight of eternal glory is clear:
The healing of that old ache.
Joy, eternal and ecstatic.
Being beautifully robed in righteousness.
Knowing Christ fully, my King and co-heir.
The final destruction of death, disease, and the devil. The vindication of His holy name. The restoration of all things under Christ.
These things outweigh thousands of afternoons of sweats and high blood pressure any day. They outweigh a lifetime of not feeling or moving. Mind you, I’m not saying that my paralysis is light in and of itself, it only becomes light in contrast to the far greater weight on the other side of the scale. And although I wouldn’t normally call three decades in a wheelchair “momentary,” it is when you realize that “you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).
Scripture is constantly trying to get us to look at life this way. Our life is but a blip on the eternal screen. Pain will be erased by a greater understanding, it will be eclipsed by a glorious result. Something so superb, so grandiose is going to happen at the world’s finale, that it will suffice for every hurt and atone for every heartache. It also helps to know that the state of suffering we are in here is necessary to reach the state we want (more accurately, God wants!) in heaven.
This is why Jesus spent so much energy emphasizing the end-of-time perspective. The Lord had come from heaven, and He knew how wonderful it was. Thus, He was always focusing on end results—the harvest of the crop, the fruit from the tree, the close of the day’s labor, the profit from the investment, the house that stands the storm. He knew if we were to rejoice in our suffering, our fascination with the here and now would have to be subdued. How else could He say to those who mourn, “You are blessed”? How else could He tell the persecuted to be happy? How else could He remind His followers facing torture and death to “count it all joy”?
Nothing more radically altered the way I looked at my suffering than leapfrogging to this end-of-time vantage point. Heaven became my greatest hope. In fact, I wondered how other people could possibly face quadriplegia, cancer, or even a death in the family without the hope of heaven. It meant no more wallowing away hours by the farmhouse window, scorning Romans 8:28, and muttering, “How can it say all things fit together into a pattern for good in my life!” God’s pattern for my earthly good may have smelled like urine and felt painful, but I knew the end result in heaven would exude a fragrant and glorious aroma: Christ in me, the hope of glory.
It’s all a matter of time. “God makes all things beautiful in his time,” says Ecclesiastes 3:11. And for many, they won’t see the beauty until the end of time. Time solves the dilemma of Romans 8:28, as well as all the other problems of evil, suffering, and pain.
The Connection Between Hardship and Heaven
You may not be paralyzed with a broken neck, but you could be paralyzed by other limitations. A broken heart. A broken home. A broken reputation. These things that presently scream for your undivided attention may close the doors to earthly satisfaction, but they can swing windows wide-open to a spirited hope of heaven.
Mind you, the closed doors—many of which have slammed in your face and crunched your fingers—are no accident. God wishes to instill within you a deep desire for your inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, but in order to grip your heart, He will take drastic measures. You may not appreciate His modus operandi at first, but later, with an end-of-time perspective, you can be grateful for it. Samuel Rutherford described the connection between heaven and hardships this way:
If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that He should begin by crippling me in arm or limb, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven.2
That’s exactly what God did for me when He sent a broken neck my way. He blew out the lamps in my life that lit up the here and now and made it so captivating. The dark despair of total and permanent paralysis that followed wasn’t much fun, but it sure made heaven come alive. And one day, when our Bridegroom comes back—probably when I’m right in the middle of lying down on my office sofa for the umpteenth time—God is going to throw open heaven’s shutters. There’s not a doubt in my mind that I’ll be fantastically more excited and ready for it than if I were on my feet.
Suffering is no failure of God’s plan. True, it is part of the curse, along with death, disease, and destruction. But before God comes back to close the curtain on suffering, it is meant to be redeemed. As Dorothy Sayers said, “Only in Christianity do we see a good God reaching down into what otherwise would be awful evil and wrench out of it positive good for us, and glory for Himself.”
So what is this connection between heaven and our hardships?
Suffering Moves Our Heart Toward Heaven
Suffering makes us want to go there. Broken homes and broken hearts crush our illusions that earth can keep its promises, that it can really satisfy. Only the hope of heaven can truly move our passions off this world—which God knows could never fulfill us anyway—and place them where they will find their glorious fulfillment.
When I was on my feet, it would have been nice had I focused on heaven purely for Christ’s sake, but forget that. Altruistic, yes. But realistic? No. I was healthy, athletic, distracted, and not the type to get hyped about heaven for anyone’s sake other than my own. Who wants to think about heaven when you’ve got things to do and places to go here? Besides, you have to die in order to get there. I did not want to think about that at the age of seventeen.
It’s the nature of the human beast. At least this beast. Some people have to break their necks in order to get their hearts on heavenly glories above, and I happen to be one of them. It was only after the permanency of my paralysis sank in, that heaven interested me.
Thank heavens, you don’t have to break your neck to get grabbed. When you come to know that the hopes you have cherished will never come true, that your loved one is gone from this life forever, that you will never be as pretty or successful or famous as you had once imagined, your sights are lifted. You long and look forward to the day when your hopes will be fulfilled and heartache will vanish. The glorious day when “we will be whole” becomes your passion as you realize that, once and for all, earth can never meet your deepest longings.
My hope of running through earthly meadows and splashing my feet in a stream will never come true—but it will in the new heavens and new earth. My dream of hugging a loved one and actually feeling his or her embrace will never come true—but it will when we stand together before Jesus.
You can appreciate this, especially if earth has broken your heart. You may be a mother who has lost her child in an accident, a son who has lost his father to cancer, or a husband whose wife has passed on to glory. These dear ones take with them a part of your heart that no one can replace. And since the pursuit of heaven is an occupation of the heart anyway, don’t be surprised if you find yourself longing for heaven after you leave the graveside. If your heart is with your loved ones, and they are home with the Lord, then heaven is home for you too.
A broken heart leads to the true contentment of asking less of this life because more is coming in the next. The art of living with suffering is the art of readjusting your expectations in the here and now. There are simply some things I will never have because of this wheelchair. Such longings heighten my loneliness here on earth. The psalmist wrapped words around this loneliness in Psalm 73:25–26 when he said, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And being with you, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Larry Crabb writes, “Godly people…nobly endure hard things. An anorexic daughter, a layoff, betrayal by a friend. They know that their existence is meaningful and that they are destined for unlimited pleasure at the deepest level (in heaven). Because they keenly feel that nothing now quite meets the standards of their longing souls, the quiet but deeply throbbing ache within them drives them not to complaint, but to anticipation and further yieldedness.”3
But asking less is not a loss, and readjusting expectations is not a negative. It’s good. When I was on my feet, big boisterous pleasures provided only fleeting satisfaction. In a wheelchair, satisfaction settles in as I sit under an oak tree on a windy day and delight in the rustle of leaves or sit by a fire and enjoy the soothing strains of a symphony. These smaller, less noisy pleasures are rich because, unlike the fun on my feet, these things yield patience, endurance, and a spirit of gratitude, all of which fits me further for eternity.
It is this yieldedness that gains you the most here on earth. You enjoy “a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” as it says in Hebrews 10:22, which in turn gives conviction to unseen divine realities and future divine fulfillments. You enjoy a new degree, a new release of energy at every point in your life as the eye of your soul is strengthened and spiritual understanding is quickened. A greater assurance of faith shows you that all things are, indeed, working together for good, and you realize without a doubt that the smallest of kind deeds done in Christ’s name will result in a greater capacity to serve God in glory.
Suffering hurries the heart homeward.
Suffering Prepares Us to Meet God
Just think. Suppose you had never in your life known physical pain. No sore back, twisted ankle, or decayed molars. What if you never had to use those crutches or that walker? How could you appreciate the scarred hands with which Christ will greet you?
Yes, Jesus will be the only One in heaven who will bear the scars of life on earth, the print of nails in His hands. We know this because on His throne, the risen Christ appears “as a Lamb that had been slain.” And when we touch His scars, God will give us at least a partial answer to the “Why?” questions about our suffering, commenting to us, “Why not?”
If Jesus went through so much suffering to secure for us that which we don’t deserve, why did we complain when we endured on earth only a tiny fraction of what He went through on our behalf? But if, instead, we stifled complaints and rejoiced in the privilege of participating in the sufferings of Christ, we will be overjoyed when His glory bursts on the scene. For “we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:17).
In a way, I wish I could take to heaven my old, tattered Everest & Jennings wheelchair. I would point to the empty seat and say, “Lord, for decades I was paralyzed in this chair. But it showed me how paralyzed You must have felt to be nailed to Your Cross. My limitations taught me something about the limitations You endured when You laid aside Your robes of state and put on the indignity of human flesh.”
At that point, with my strong and beautiful glorified body, I might sit in it, rub the armrests with my hands, look up at Jesus, and add, “The weaker I felt in this chair, the harder I leaned on You. And the harder I leaned, the more I discovered how strong You are. Thank You, Jesus, for learning obedience in Your suffering…You gave me grace to learn obedience in mine.”
Not only will I appreciate the scars of Christ, but also the scars of other believers. There I will see men and women that in the world were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, tortured and persecuted, eaten by beasts, and drowned in the seas—all for the love they had for the Lord. What a privilege it will be to stand near their ranks! But what a shame it would be if, in conversing with them, we could only shrug our shoulders and prattle, “Me? Suffer? Well, there was that time I had to endure the most insipid color of yellow on my living room walls…and, oh yes, my gallbladder surgery. Do you want to see my scars?”
Forgive me for being flippant, but perhaps we would bite our complaining tongues more often if we stopped to picture the scene in heaven. The examples of other suffering saints are meant to inspire us upward on our heavenly journey home. This is why I love reading the biographies of missionaries like Amy Carmichael or J. Hudson Taylor, people who considered it a privilege to bear their sufferings with grace so they might share in Christ’s glory.
Suppose you had never in your life known emotional pain. No stained reputation. No bruised feelings. No pangs of guilt. What if no one had ever offended you deeply? How could you adequately express your gratitude when you approach the Man of Sorrows who was acquainted with grief?
If you were never embarrassed or felt ashamed, you could never grasp how much He loved you when He endured the spit from soldiers, the spinelessness of His disciples, the callousness of the crowd, and the jeers from the mob. All for the love of you.
He took your shameful sins and made them His. You will be able to say, “Lord, I’m grateful that I felt the piercing stab of guilt…I can better appreciate how You were wounded by sin on the Cross!”
Lastly, suppose you had never in your life known the struggle against sin. There’s a distinct connection between heaven and this struggle. The apostle John tightened the connection when he wrote in 1 John 3:2–3, “We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself.”
It is rare to find believers who, for the sake of heaven, purify themselves. But I want to be one of them, don’t you? I want to sweep my conscience clean and jerk open every closet in my heart that hides a skeleton. It’s painful to sit this close to self-scrutiny and cut away every sin that entangles, and I don’t like “gouging out the eye” or “cutting off the hand” any more than you do. But it’s what the Lord requires if we are to possess a lively anticipation of seeing Him face-to-face. Everyone who purifies himself has a heavenly hope, and everyone who possesses this hope, purifies himself.4
I want to be as happy as possible in heaven; and Bishop Ryle is on target when he warns, “Heaven is a holy place. Its inhabitants are all holy. Its occupations are all holy. To be really happy in heaven, it stands to reason we must be somewhat prepared for it. Our hearts must be somewhat in tune, somewhat ready for it.”5
Yes, you want to be happy in heaven. And, yes, you’d like to feel at home with King David and the apostles Paul and John. Then live a life in agreement with the things they spoke about. Could we enthusiastically greet the apostle Paul who said, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21) if we made it a practice of stepping on others to get ahead?
Could we look forward to hours alone with the apostle John who said, “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16) if in truth we settled for a halfhearted, ho-hum devotion to our Lord Jesus? Would we really feel comfortable with David who said, “I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me” (Psalm 57:2) if we opted to ignore God when troubles came?
How could we be thrilled to meet the Lord face-to-face after clinging on earth to the very sins for which He died? It is impossible to hold onto sinful habits while, at the same time, holding onto the desire to touch the nail-scarred hands of Christ. No one can hope for heaven while consciously clutching onto sins he knows to be offensive. True, holy living is rugged and demanding, but its heavenly rewards are precious. It is heavenly minded people who nail their sin to the cross; who desire, like John, to lean upon Christ; who abandon themselves, like Paul, to be caught up into a third heaven; who wish, like David, to sit at the feet of His Lord.
Yes, it’s a struggle. And the entire chapter seven of Romans assures us holy living will always be a struggle. But think of it as the best way of showing your love to Christ! “Of all the things that will surprise us in the resurrection morning, this, I believe, will surprise us most: that we did not love Christ more before we died.”6
I don’t know about you, but that’s one surprise I want to avoid. I want to cut away every sin that entangles.
A curious thing will happen if you view your suffering this way. Once you see your affliction as a preparation to meet God, you won’t be quick to call it “suffering” again. Even though I have rough moments in my wheelchair, such as the one in my office with high blood pressure and pain, for the most part I consider my paralysis a gift. Just as Jesus exchanged the meaning of the Cross from a symbol of torture to one of hope and salvation, He gives me the grace to do the same with my chair. If a cross can become a blessing, so can a wheelchair.
I’m inspired by Madame Guyon who, although locked away in the depths of a French dungeon for many years, wrote, “I have no desire that my imprisonment should end before the right time; I love my chains.” And Amy Carmichael, the missionary to India who wrote from her bed of affliction,
Before the winds that blow do cease,
Teach me to dwell within Thy calm:
Before the pain has passed in peace,
Give me, my God, to sing a psalm.7
Misses Guyon and Carmichael would say something else. They would expect me to never dare say I was “suffering” paralysis. Once a gift, always a gift. The wheelchair is, in a sense, behind me now. The despair is over. There are now other crosses to bear, other “wheelchairs” in my life to be exchanged into gifts.
When you meet Jesus face-to-face, your loyalty in your hardships will give you something tangible, something concrete to offer Him in return. For what proof could you bring of your love and faithfulness if this life left you totally unscarred?
When Suffering Seems Insurmountable
Over the phone, I could hear the puffing and wheezing of Lisa’s respirator as she labored to speak between breaths. “Joni, I don’t…see why God…is putting me through…all this suffering…Why doesn’t He just…take me home…now?”
I leaned my head against the receiver and wondered, for the thousandth time, what to say. Lisa was a twenty-one-year-old woman who became severely paralyzed as a result of an accident two and a half years earlier. In that time she had been shifted from one hospital to another. The doctors had done all they could, and now they were deliberating over where to send her next. Her parents couldn’t take her in. Independent living centers for people her age were overcrowded with long waiting lists. The only option? A nursing home.
I’d had many years in a wheelchair. Lisa, only a few. How could I expect her to grasp the things that had taken me ages to understand? What could I give or say to help?
“I’m a Christian,” Lisa continued, interrupting my thoughts. “Why do I…have to go through all…this?”
I used to ask myself that many times. Okay, I’ll accept this connection between hardship and heaven, but what if the hardship is insurmountable? Overwhelming? Unbearable? I’m paralyzed from the shoulders down, but Lisa is paralyzed from the neck down. She can’t even breathe on her own. How can one deal with so much frustration and affliction? Questions such as these lose their academic tone when couched around the struggles of someone like her. This young respirator-dependent quadriplegic is thrust out into a no-man’s-land, way ahead of the frontline trenches where most of us suffer.
As we talked on the phone, I sensed that her questions were not the “why?” of the clenched fist sort, but the “why?” of a searching heart. Bitterness was not her nemesis. Lisa was actually wondering how to live, how to view her affliction as meaningful. I knew that if she could rise above her circumstances to see her suffering from a heavenly end, she’d be in the enviable position of gaining more than most.
“You mean I’ve got more to gain than you?” she breathed into the phone.
“Yes, I believe you do,” I answered gently.
“I’m ready…I want to understand…I don’t want to live…my life in vain.”
For the next hour, I slowly tried to lift her sights beyond the impassable wall of her hospital room. I began with the basics (which are really not so basic) and shared how her paralysis could become the best place from which to know God. “‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ it says in Psalm 46:10. Lisa, the hours you spend in that bed of yours are a way of being still before the Lord. A large part of you doesn’t move. Literally. It is always quiet. This built-in stillness can help you understand things about the Lord that most people never grasp,” I explained.
Perfect stillness is not always available to those who would appreciate it most, and often not appreciated by those who have it. Lisa had a long way to go before she could learn how to be comfortable in her enforced stillness, but the softness in her voice assured me she was on her way. She will learn that it’s not merely an absence of noise and fidgety movement, but a spiritual alertness, a receptivity. Jim Elliot, the missionary who was speared to death by Auca Indians, wrote, “Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”8
“Enough has been wasted in your life, Lisa,” I said. “Don’t waste anymore of it. And don’t worry about finding answers…I don’t think they
would satisfy you at this point anyway. Just use the time you’ve got, the stillness you’re experiencing…use it to get to know God.”
“But how?”
I smiled at her question because I knew the answer was going to sound so simple it would seem sophomoric. “Talk to Him in prayer, and let Him talk to you in His Word.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Lisa told me she would start doing just that, especially when I told her that the faintest prayers of those who suffer reach more deeply into God’s heart. At that point, I imagined angels in heaven kicking up their heels and rejoicing. This vent-dependent quadriplegic who will lie in bed and spend long moments in prayer may not realize it, but she will be doing the work of angels. After all, there are angels in heaven who do nothing but praise God, such as the seraphim who proclaim day and night before the Lord, “Holy, Holy, Holy!”
She has an arduous road ahead, but when hurting people like her give God an inch, He always takes a mile. He wants those who suffer greatly to receive even greater glory.
The clock has stopped. The universe has flashed and cracked. The flood has swept the dam.
Bright angels sift like gold dust from the gash, heralding invitations of the lamb:
“Arise ye hobbling, tattered, orphaned, blind,
Ye maimed in spirit, measured without merit,
by men cast off as useless. Rise and find
the crown, the throne, the birthright to inherit.
—Douglas Kaine McKelvey9
The Greater the Suffering, the Greater the Glory
There is a direct relationship between earth’s suffering and heaven’s glory. I’m not glorifying suffering here. There’s no inherent goodness in Lisa’s spinal cord injury. There’s nothing applaudable about the agony. Problems are real, and I’m not denying that suffering hurts. I’m just denying that it matters in the grander scheme of things. It is light and momentary compared with what our response is producing for us in heaven—yes, suffering is pivotal to future glory. This places Lisa in that enviable position I mentioned earlier.
Let me explain. The greatest suffering that ever occurred happened on the Cross. And the greatest glory ever given in response to suffering was the glory ascribed to Christ when He ascended. He suffered “death on a cross…therefore God exalted him to the highest place” (Philippians 2:8–9). There is a direct correspondence between suffering and glory.
When the mother of James and John approached the Lord and asked if her sons could please enjoy a position of prominence in the kingdom of heaven, the Lord replied, “You don’t know what you’re asking.” Then He said to her sons, “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
“We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup” (see Matthew 20:20–23).
The Lord inferred that if His followers were to share in His glory, they would also have to share in His sufferings. And the deeper the suffering, the higher the glory. This is why the apostle Peter could say that to the degree one suffers, keep on rejoicing, “Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13). We rejoice on earth…so that we may be overjoyed in heaven.
Does this mean that those who suffer greatly, yet nobly, will have a bigger halo? A shinier face? No, but it does mean that they will enjoy a greater capacity to serve God in heaven. Those who suffer beyond comparison will, if they honor Christ with an uncomplaining spirit, be glorified beyond all comparison.
I’m sure there will be times when Lisa will smirk—like I did—as she reads Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Like me, she will go through cycles, thinking, Is the Bible being flippant about my lot in life? But as long as she keeps focused on the basics—being still and knowing God through prayer and Scripture—she will remain on the high road home. She will be more devoted to the future than the present. More devoted to the spiritual than the physical. And more devoted to eternal realities than temporal ones.10
Don’t Go to Heaven Yet!
There’s another cycle Lisa will have to go through. I still deal with it and I bet you do too. The firmer my heart becomes anchored in heaven, the more I want to go there. Now.
It has nothing to do with being tired of sitting down or getting cricks in my neck from holding up my head all day. It’s just that less of my heart is here, and more of it is there. I identify with the apostle Paul who said in Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Now if I am to go on living, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I don’t know. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ which is better by far…but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”
Like Paul, I often debate the pros and cons of life. But also like him, my earthly life is meant to be one of discontentment. I am torn between the two. I desire to depart. Since my heart has already gone ahead, I long to follow it home. But it is more necessary that I—Lisa, and thousands like us—remain in the body. For others.
I touched on why at the close of my phone conversation with Lisa. “If you remain faithful, despite the odds, it helps people like me more than you’ll ever know.”
“But it’s hard…to think of others…when you’re hurting.”
“I know.” My voice was nearly a whisper. “But it is more necessary for you to remain in the body…it is more necessary for me and many more who know you better. A fellow with a disability once wrote, ‘For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer’ (2 Corinthians 1:5–6).”
There was a long pause at the other end.
“The fact that you hang in there…does something for the rest of us Christians. I’m not talking about you being an inspiration. It’s more than that…it’s a mystery. God somehow strengthens others by your faithfulness. You may feel like a burden to others, but God thinks the opposite. He thinks it’s necessary that others take care of you…You will be doing more for their spiritual well-being than you can imagine. What’s more, it’s all being credited to your account. The apostle Paul said so in Philippians 1:25–26 when he told a bunch of guys his example inspired, ‘I will continue with all of you…so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.’ Did you get that part about ‘on account of me?’ If good things happen to others because of your example, God chalks it up on your record.”
Lisa threw a curve, “But I don’t…see others anymore…Everyone…has gone away…I may help you…but nobody else.”
At that point, she raised another reason why God hasn’t taken her to heaven yet. She must endure not only for the benefit of others, but for the purpose of teaching the unseen powers, the rulers, and authorities in the heavenly realms about her powerful and all-sustaining Lord.
“You see,” I explained, “I had a friend named Denise when I was in the hospital. She laid in bed for eight years, blind and paralyzed. Much worse than you or me. She hung in there despite the odds.”
There was another long silence on the other end, and I knew Lisa was listening intently.
“Denise died after eight years in that bed. My human logic said, ‘God, You should have taken her home to heaven sooner…what did all her striving accomplish for the handful of nurses who happened to know her?’ But then I read a verse in Ephesians 3:10 that says God uses our lives like a blackboard upon which He teaches lessons about Himself. And He does it for the benefit of angels and demons…maybe not people, but quadrillions of unseen beings.”
Something dynamic is happening in heaven right now. Angels and demons are learning new things about God. It happens when believers allow their painful circumstances to be the platform from which their souls rise to heavenly heights. Every day that we go on living in these bodies means fruitful labor—for us, for others, for the glory of God, and for the heavenly hosts.
Onward and Upward
Suffering does this. It always drives us in deeper and up higher. Always onward and upward into the heart of heaven.
Lisa and I said good-bye and continued to keep in touch. She settled into a living situation with a friend and began to attend a local college. She got involved with her church and started going to Bible study. After five years, we lost contact. I wasn’t worried about her, though, because she seemed to be on a steady path.
This year, however, I got the shock of my life when, after I finished speaking at a conference, a young woman hooked up to a ventilator wheeled up to me with a confident smile. I knew immediately who she was. The light in her eyes assured me this was the same young woman. She was happily heading for home and making the most of every day on the way.
Had Madame Guyon been able to reach across the centuries to Lisa (confined in her own set of bolts and bars), she would congratulate her with these words penned from her dark dungeon: “What gain has been made compared to the little that has been lost! You will have lost ‘the creature’ in order to gain ‘the Creator.’ You will have lost your nothingness in order to gain all things. You will be boundless, for you will have inherited God! Your capacity to experience His life will grow just a little more. Everything that you once had, and lost, will return to you in God.”11
Lisa and I have seen the future, and the future is us. A glorious future for those who, for Christ’s sake, suffer valiantly.
Yours is a glorious future too. God has placed suffering in your life to remind you that heaven is not only for the future; it is for now, for this present moment. Heaven is meant to bless your path and be a source of strength in your suffering today. Valiantly welcome it and greet it.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven. No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this precious little instant. Take peace. The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, within our reach, is joy…Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love and wisdom and power. Welcome it, greet it, and touch the angel’s hand that brings it.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, a duty: believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys too: be not content with them as joys. They too conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it, that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims wending through unknown country on our way home.
—Fra Angelico, 1387–145512