A place in Heaven

What is a place in heaven worth to me?

If a survey were started on the question of what individuals imagine under heaven and what it is worth to reach there, the most varied answers would come together. The reactions would range from incomprehension and disinterest to spasmodic struggle to exuberant enthusiasm.

 This reminds me of a picture that reflects this contradiction in a special way: a long way has formed a long line of people. People, as different as they can be, have lined up. Some of them are standing there with a proudly swelled breast. Some carry orders, others carry a heavy briefcase filled with important documentation of their extraordinary achievements. Some hold prizes and awards in their hands. But there are also people among the people waiting, who seem very insecure. They are left wondering if what they have to offer will be enough to go to heaven. At the gate stands a tall, white-clad figure, who has a short conversation with every single person who wants to go to heaven. Again and again, the white figure shakes his head and says loud and clear: „It is not enough.“ But there is another way to see it in the picture. He is much narrower and steeper than the other. In this way, people are recognizable, who, dressed in white robes, move in serene serenity to a radiant gate. There stands a bright figure and welcomes every single comer.

Ways of life

If someone had asked me 30 years ago what heaven is worth to me, I would not have been able to give him a clear answer. I knew there was a God residing in heaven. I knew this God through the prayers at home or later from the Confirmation class. But otherwise? It was much more interesting for me during my studies to meditate or to study Eastern wisdom. Heaven does not mean anything to me, so what should he be worth to me? Without living relationship with God also no relation to the sky.

It was fundamentally different when I was very close to God, the Creator and Father of Jesus Christ. A clever man once said:

 

Religion is the search of man for God.“ The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is God’s search for the people. „

 

God had found my wife first. Speaking at a conference, she had understood something revolutionary about her: „God is a Person, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, has come to this earth to overcome the separation between God and man through his sacrificial death on Golgotha.“ Jesus Christ speaks of himself in John 14: 6, „I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. „She wanted to go to God the Father, she wanted to be a child of God, so she accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior, and when our two younger children and I saw her again days later, she had to Suddenly we sensed that something extraordinary had happened to her and she told us about her decision for Jesus, and our then 11-year-old son spontaneously responded: „Mom, whoever hears you say this about Jesus, just has to believe in him.“