The Things Above
/Intro Triptych 3 of 3
Since you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on Earth. Colossians 3:1-2
bookshop hunting ©k.j.doogan
Early 1990s B.A.E. (Before Amazon Era)
So, if you want to find more out about Heaven, where would you look? The local Christian bookstore, right? Because any excuse to go to a bookstore is a good one.
I walked up to the June Cleaver lookalike at the counter. “Excuse me. Where are your books on Heaven?”
She glanced at me over purple plastic half-frame readers. “You mean on the end times?”
“No. On Heaven.”
“Astronomy?”
“No?” Astronomy?
“You mean like God’s home?”
“That’s the one.”
“Adult or a children’s book?”
“Adult.”
She furrowed her brow, put her finger to her lips, drew her breath through her nose deeply, held it, mentally calculated, exhaled, and then answered, “What’s this for?”
“I have friends who lost a child and I want to be able to talk to them about Heaven.”
“So, a book about death and dying?”
“No. Not specifically. A general theological book. I want to study what the Bible teaches about Heaven. For other reasons as well.”
“Ah.” She squinted. “So, angels, and that sort of thing.”
“Uh. Well. Sort of. More broad, really.”
“Uh huh.” She pulled off her glasses and stared into the airspace over the shelves, then walked around her desk and said, “Follow me. Let’s see what we can find.”
I followed Mrs. Cleaver as she wove through the stacks, intermittently stopping, running her pointer finger back and forth across the shelves as if she were speed-reading a page. “No. Noooo. Nope… Huh! You’d think there’d be something,” she said. We stopped at a pamphlet rack where there were several HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN! leaflets. She raised her eyebrows and looked at me hopefully. I shook my head. She tapped her nose with the purple glasses. “Let’s look at Prophecy.”
“Okay, but I really wanted something about the current Heaven.”
“I don’t think we have the current Heaven.” I hoped she was referring to literature.
“Okay, Prophecy,” I conceded. I followed her to a rear aisle situated under a florescent light that seemed to be fluttering on its last dying watt.
“Here you go.” She dropped me off mid-step and headed back to her register. “Let me know if you need anything else,” her voice trailed behind her.
The shelf was sparsely stocked, and books were either sensational headline grabbing, earth exploding paperbacks about a late-great-planet, or fist-thick, dusty hardcover commentaries on biblical prophetic books. Was it possible that there were no books on Heaven? The light sizzled and blinked. This seemed wrong, like a bizarre alternate reality. I half expected Rod Serling to walk out from behind the stack to introduce a Twilight Zone episode. Enter one ordinary Christian woman seeking another dimension. A heavenly one. Is it lost? Forgotten? Or is it…non-biblical? [creepy music] You’ve just crossed over into—The Biblical Twilight Zone. Sizzle. Blink.
There was nothing here for me. I thanked June and left.
Next stop: a nearby church. Surely I’d find Heaven information there. I stopped in and asked if I could have a few minutes. The pastor cheerfully waved me in, and pointed to the chair in front of his desk. I sat down and recounted the bookshop story, thinking that we’d have a chuckle over the whole ordeal. He sat at his desk quietly, with his hands folded until the end of my tale. There was an awkward pause. When he didn’t speak, I cleared my throat and continued, “So, I was wondering if you could recommend something for me to study.”
“Well, the Bible doesn't really tell us much about Heaven.”
“I…don’t…see how that’s possible.”
“There are few references about the physical place, so it’s something that we take on faith.”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“Our ways aren’t always His,” he leaned back into his chair and smiled reassuringly.
On my way out, I checked to see if Rod Serling was hiding in the narthex. He was not. I headed home, feeling absolutely lost.
At home, I sat at my desk, pulled out my study Bible and mindlessly flipped through the pages. Was it true? Did the Bible not talk about Heaven? Colossians 3 said to set your mind on Heaven. I thought: Okay, well, that’s frustrating. What are we supposed to set our mind on? Clouds? Stars? Where did the idea for the flannelgraph Heaven castle come from?
I stopped flipping, sighed heavily, then glanced down. A verse in front of me came into focus. I read it, leaned forward and reread it.
Call to me and I will answer you and I will tell you great and mighty things which you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3, NASB
“Are you talking to me?” I read it again. “Okay, God. I’m going to take you up on this. Can you do this—I mean, will you? Please tell me great and mighty things about Heaven that I don’t know!”
Almost immediately, it occurred to me that I should pull out my Gulliver-sized exhaustive concordance and look up every passage that included the word Heaven. Eventually I started highlighting the corresponding passages in blue pencil in my Bible. Then I started looking for other related words: eternal, glory, reward…the list grew. That prayer was my preface to what would become a decades-long Heaven study.
Does the Bible talk about Heaven? Now, listen. I’m going to tell you something amazing: The Bible talks about Heaven—a lot. That single word is mentioned more than 600 times. Heaven is like the golden thread that runs throughout the tapestry of the Word!
And you know what? The biblical text wouldn’t turn out to be my only Heaven resource after all. I eventually found many books and sermons authored by teachers and pastors. Sadly, most of them were found by hunting them down in old antique-book shops. It seems that prior generations of believers put a much greater emphasis on studying their eternal home. At the eve of the 19th century you can see the doctrine starting to wane and fewer books published. In the 1877 edition of The New Sermons of D.L. Moody, the famous evangelist pulls no punches when he tries to refocus his listeners:
“Men who say that Heaven is a speculation have not read their Bibles…there are allusions scattered all through it… If we want to get men to fix their hearts and attention upon Heaven, we must get them to read more about it. I would find nothing about that place that wouldn’t interest me… I call your attention to this truth: Heaven is just as much a place as Chicago.”
In fact, D.L. Moody was famous for calling people to focus on Heaven throughout his ministry.
With the invention of eBay, I was able to find more out-of-print Heaven books. As the internet expanded, so did the resources—though hunting in musty antique bookshops will always be my favorite way to find Heaven book treasures.
When our daughters grew up, they attended excellent Christian colleges. Their friends often had questions about Heaven (especially when experiencing the death of a loved one) but surprisingly, even there, the doctrine of Heaven didn’t seem to be addressed much. They often asked me to speak with their friends, and then eventually to teach small groups about what I’d learned. The small groups grew into larger groups, and eventually teaching about Heaven started to become an unintended ministry.
I better understand now why we are supposed to focus on Heaven. I find Heaven everywhere and can see facets of it in almost everything. It is my touchstone. It overflows into so much of what I think and do. Eternity is my context. I raised my daughters to set their hearts on Heaven. It undergirds my marriage. It is my filter, my survival secret. It never disappoints me, and never ceases to amaze me.
But why was it so difficult to find?
Could it be that the last generation really has forgotten the doctrine of Heaven?
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said:
Information about Heaven—the things above—was there all along. I just had to ask the Lord to show it to me and start looking.
And so can you.