My daughter sat me down the other day and was in tears. “Daddy I don’t want to go to heaven” What, I said, but why? Here I was ready to hear her impassioned plea that she wasn’t worthy to stand before a righteous God.

Or perhaps she saw the plight of so many who would never see the pearly gates and, like Paul, would rather go to Hell if she could save all the lost souls.

Shortly my romanticizing of my daughters plight was soon to be dashed by the concept only a child born in a post modern, media driven culture could conjure up. She was afraid; being there for eternity that she would get…bored.

Yes this is what heaven has become to the modern man. What once was a place of eternal refuge from the pains of earthly existence has become a territory of tedium where it will be difficult to be perpetually entertained.

That’s right my fellow Christian parents, apparently heaven has lost its appeal once the kids found out there was no texting there.
Of course it hasn’t helped things that heaven is normally depicted as a place where we all get wings and harps and play dirges to the Lord who one would think with all His omnipotent power would have provided more instruments at our disposal than an archaic one we don’t even play on earth.

Wings were another element that seemed a little unnecessary in heaven. Do we even breathe air in heaven, and if we want to get around do we really need to rely on the law of lift to get us there?

There is also this unsettling idea that we no longer belong to our earthly family but in fact have all become one in an eternal commune of togetherness. Suddenly Moses, Paul, AND Benny Hinn are my brothers?
Sounds like a bad Thanksgiving with the relatives your not good enough for, and the crazy uncle you have to invite every year but you pray he stays out of the cooking sherry!

I didn’t really have a good answer for my daughter as to how time would be spent in heaven, but I took some solace in the fact that she is contemplating the incomprehensible and wondering about eternity.

If more Christians would begin the hard journey of nurturing their intellect, and facing the hard problems of faith without fear that some answers are difficult to grasp, perhaps more secular humanist would give us a listen.

There is nothing more harmful to our faith than the Christian who says all they need is faith and the idea that our intellectual exploration is not of God. Gee, wonder why more and more “smart” people find God less and less compelling?
The Bible says if we don’t study, and meditate, and be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks, we should be ashamed of ourselves. I for one am grateful to my daughter for reminding me that she is made in Gods image, the hard things of God are worth exploring, and that my faith is strengthened by my rational and logical pursuits of Gods Truth!

Still not crazy about harp music though.