Are We Ready for Eternity?

John’s Revelation presents a beautiful picture of time spent in the presence of God. In case we think heaven will be boring, we ought to look to this book for inspiration. It is epic, awe-inspiring, wondrous, and almost fantastical in how it describes God’s majesty and splendor, His love and mercy. There is nothing boring about Revelation—confusing perhaps, overwhelming maybe, but never boring. If John’s experience is any indication of heaven, we know we will be active and engaged, not idly strumming harps and lounging on clouds. The question is, are we ready for it?

In Revelation, we learn about God’s eternal nature, that He exists, has always existed, and will always exist. He predates time and will outlast it as well. The four living creatures who announce God throughout Revelation cry out at one point:

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, the Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.” Revelation 4:8 CSB

God Himself reveals this reality as well. “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty’” (Revelation 1:8 CSB).

Most astounding is that God invites us into this eternity. He wants us to share with Him in an everlasting symphony of glory and praise, basking in His light. In Revelation 22:5, John writes concerning the redeemed, “…for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (CSB).

On the one hand, the idea of reigning forever in the presence of God sounds beautiful, but at the same time, it terrifies me. Me, reign forever? Over what? What is it God will give me as subject that I will ruin with my sinfulness? What is it God will entrust to me to which I will bring destruction? I have messed up enough of the few things I have been given to know that I can bring disaster without even trying. The idea of reigning forever over anything brings me anxiety and fear.

As those with mental illness, we are keenly aware of how we can careen our lives off course without a thought. Many of us had dreams growing up, some more practical than others. I wanted to be a missionary or a diplomat. Starry-eyed and ever the optimist, I entered college studying International Studies with a focus on Middle Eastern history and sociology. I even added a Hebrew Language minor to the mix and started learning Arabic as well. If high school was a predictor of my future success, I should have breezed through college and flown off to bigger and better things.

Instead, I entered a deep depression and disorienting psychosis, and by junior year of college, I wasn’t even sure if I would finish my degree. I attempted suicide about once a month for a while, never quite courageous enough to finish the job. Every time I withdrew from an attempt, rather than feeling relief for having survived, I despaired even more. I felt like an absolute, miserable failure. I couldn’t even follow through on taking my own life. Yet thanks be to God!

There is a beautiful verse nestled in the book of Daniel that brings me hope that God was with me even in those times. King Nebuchadnezzar had asked Daniel to interpret a disturbing dream he’d had, and Daniel had been praying with his friends to have the meaning revealed. When God bestowed the interpretation on Daniel, Daniel broke out in poetic praise, saying of God, “…he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in darkness, and the light dwells with him” (Daniel 2:22 CSB).

God knows what is in the darkness. He knew where I was in my deepest hour of despair. Even now, He is revealing to me what dwelled in my heart in those times, those things tucked deep behind my self-delusional façade that everything was okay or that I was justified in how I was responding to the terrors in my life. God knew everything, knows everything, and is aware of everything to come. This world holds no secrets for God, nor does my soul. God knows me.

Yet the final line of Daniel 2:22 packs the punch—the light dwells with God. He knows everything—all the darkest, most twisted, most depraved things—yet “the light dwells with him.” When I think about it, I find it hard to understand how a good God, holy, perfect, and sinless, can be aware of such evil as exists in the world yet abide it with patience. Peter writes in his second letter that God delays in order to see as many come to Him through Jesus as possible. To witness such evil, sorrow, and heartbreak and refrain from judgment is beyond me, but I wonder even more that God would send His Son, Jesus, into such a world. A man of sorrows, who despite being the Supreme Maker and Master of the Universe, refused to condemn even one of us by His entrance into our world (John 3:17). Isaiah prophesied:

He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick; he will faithfully bring justice. He will not grow weak or be discouraged until he has established justice on earth... (43:3-4 CSB)

Jesus refused to break us, bruised reeds that we are, and instead Himself was broken for us. He faithfully took on the wrath of God towards mankind through His own death, and He will not become weak or discouraged until He brings justice on earth in His Second Coming. Glory is coming, is here, in the Person of Christ and in His Spirit in us.

Yet though Jesus’s death has brought about a change in my status before God, what about my nature? I might be counted as righteous, but I am far from acting that way. How can I hope to rule and reign in eternity as God promises without bringing disaster? Jesus once told a crowd, “‘While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light” (John 12:36a CSB). To become a child of light, then? Is that how I will be able to rule in righteousness? Paul would agree, as he wrote to the Thessalonians, “For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness” (1 Thessalonians 5:5 CSB). Putting it another way, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:16 CSB)

Ezekiel looked forward to this time, recording God’s words to Israel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 CSB).

Jeremiah also prophesied about this transformation, saying:

“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34 CSB)

One day, we will know the Lord. “For now we see only a reflection, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12 CSB).

One day, I will see and understand God in a way I cannot fathom now. His mercy will be more real than ever, His grace more precious, and His love more tangible than I can imagine in this earthly pilgrimage. He will write His teaching on my heart. In this way, He will prepare me for the reign He has ready for me in eternity. In the new heavens and the new earth God will establish after Jesus’s Second Coming, sin and death will no longer plague us. God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4 CSB).

One day, I will be ready for heaven. Even now, God is changing my perspective, little by little, to see His kindness and glory in both the macroscopic and microscopic views of life, in the grand story of it all and in the details. To repeat a verse from earlier with some more context:

From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:16-17 CSB)

We might struggle still with anxiety and depression, and we yet might suffer from psychotic hallucinations and delusions, but we know the new is coming and is here. The most important transformation has already occurred for us if we have turned from enemies of God to children of God.

Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19 CSB)

We have a ministry of reconciliation, Paul says. So what are we to do?

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:20-21 CSB)

We are to plead with the world, “Be reconciled to God,” even as we have been reconciled to Him through Christ. We are to tell the story of Jesus, that he “who did not know sin” became “sin for us.” God calls us to tell the world that “we might become the righteousness of God,” children of God. We have a mission in this life, a purpose. God has redeemed us from our toxic cycles of aimless wandering to a calling much higher than anything we could have purposed for ourselves.

And the beauty of it is that we can fulfill our roles amid mental illness, because of it and not just despite it. We can glorify God in the throes of depression, the panic of anxiety, and the confusing terror of psychosis. All we need to do is turn to Him in honesty. We might not feel better in an instant. Our anxiety, depression, or psychosis might remain, but we will step out on what seems a fragile limb, the promise of God’s aid, the promise of hope, and we will find in time the limb strengthens with our weight. Faith practiced becomes faith proven.

The best way I can explain this is that we act like something is true even though we don’t feel it is true. For example, during a depressive suicidal ideation, I might not feel like life is worth living. I might not feel like there is hope enough to survive on. Yet God has said my life is precious to Him. Psalm 139 tells me that I am “fearfully and wonderfully made,” one of His wondrous works.

He promises that this trial I am enduring, this violent depression, is something that can bring me closer to Him:

And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:3-5 CSB)

So I must step out on the limb of faith in God’s promise, refusing to end my life, determining to survive even if it means enduring more of the excruciating mental anguish. I turn my attention from the tool of taking my life to God, and I cry out. I write down all the terrifying things I am thinking, trying to get them out of my mind. I plead with God to end the pain. I do whatever it takes to wait out the episode.

And then, somehow, I am on the other side looking back. I bounce on the little branch of faith I’ve been standing on. It doesn’t budge. It is far from fragile—it holds my weight and could add the weight of a thousand more and never waver. You see, this branch I was standing on is not my faith but the God I am believing in, and He carries the weight of the universe on His shoulders. Adding my miniscule weight to His burden does nothing but prove He is real, true, loving, and powerful. I can lean on God, I find, and next time it might even be a little easier to trust Him. Next episode I will step out in faith a little more readily. Next time, I know I will survive.

And this fulfills a piece of our purpose. We know there is always someone watching us, waiting for our cue, or waiting to demean us. Either way, we have proved God’s trustworthiness and goodness in our endurance through faith. We have declared to the world that God is true and that even despite our wretched deeds and sinful ways, He interacts with us to pull us from the edge of the grave. How? Through the reconciliation Jesus provides. All the while, He is teaching our hearts to trust Him, to love Him, to adore and glorify Him so that one day, someday, we will enter the new heavens and the new earth ready for the epic, awe-inspiring, wondrous, and fantastical experience it will be.