What Will You Do In Heaven?

What will we do in heaven? The Sunday comics picture saints lying about on clouds, strumming harps. It hardly takes your breath away. The fact that most Christians have a gut sense that earth is more exciting than heaven points to the deceptive powers of the Enemy and our own failure of imagination. What do we do with the idea of “eternal rest”? That sounds like the slogan of a middle-class cemetery. We know heaven begins with a party, but then what? A long nap after the feast? The typical evangelical response — “We will worship God” — doesn’t help either. The answer is certainly biblical, and perhaps my reaction is merely a reflection on me, but it sounds so one-dimensional. Something in my heart says, That’s all? How many hymns and choruses can we sing?

We will worship God in heaven, meaning all of life will finally be worship, not round after round of “Amazing Grace.” The parable of the minas in Luke 19 and the talents in Matthew 25 foreshadow a day when we shall exercise our real place in God’s economy, the role we have been preparing for on earth. He who has been faithful in the small things will be given even greater adventures in heaven. We long for adventure, to be caught up in something larger than ourselves, a drama of heroic proportions. This isn’t just a need for continual excitement, it’s part of our design. Few of us ever sense that our talents are being used to their fullest; our creative abilities are rarely given wings in this life. When Revelation 3 speaks of us being “pillars in the temple of our God,” it doesn’t mean architecture. Rather, Christ promises that we shall be actively fulfilling our total design in the adventures of the new kingdom.