While reading about heaven today – having one of those homesick days – I was reminded of a conversation I had with my son Nathaniel when he was about 7 years old. We were sitting on a tree branch over a creek in Bear Creek Canyon in Colorado with his brother Joshua, and he asked me, “Daddy, how big is heaven?”

I answered him and said, “Son, it is big enough for everyone who wants to be there, and everyone who will be there will have a mansion all their own.”

“Dad? Are there any sad people in heaven?”

“No son, all our tears will be wiped away and we will only love and be happy, but you know what?”

“What dad?

“I am feeling only love and am happy right now because I am with you boys, and you are my happiness.”

I jumped off the limb I had been sitting on with them, and just looked in amazement that I was the father of two amazing little men, and I couldn’t help but tear up.

Joshua, my youngest, said, “Dad, why are you crying if you are so happy?”

“It’s my happiness release valve son. Sometimes when I am really happy, it just oozes out of my eyes.”

Heaven Described

The Bible is very detailed about what heaven will be like for those who are written in the Lambs Book of Life. Yet, to me, just knowing what it will look like gets me excited. I mean, check this passage in Scripture that describes what heaven will LOOK like. It’s found in Revelation 21:10-20 (New International Version). It reads,

“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.

There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.

The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia[a]in length, and as wide and high as it is long. He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits[b] thick,[c] by man’s measurement, which the angel was using.

The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone.

The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.”

What a beautiful place heaven will be. I do not think any man can comprehend it, nor anyone who has said they have seen it in this life, has really seen it in all it’s awesome splendor. I do know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord for true followers of Christ; and this is my hope, that every one in this life who crosses my path will know before our paths part, that God loves them, that there is an eternal plan for their lives that starts on earth, that the Creator of the universe wants them to know Him personally through His son Jesus Christ, and above all, making certain that they know that they can know him before it is too late.

Yet, even so come quickly Lord Jesus.

Footnotes:
Revelation 21:16 That is, about 1,400 miles (about 2,200 kilometers)
Revelation 21:17 That is, about 200 feet (about 65 meters)
Revelation 21:17 Or high
Revelation 21:20 The precise identification of some of these precious stones is uncertain.

New International Version (NIV)
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