Saturday, April 14, 2007

Two Different Worlds

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:2,3 (NIV)

Summer had finally arrived and with it my favorite season of all, fishing season. As soon as possible my husband and I pulled the camp trailer high in the mountains near Walton Lake. Bright and early the following morning at the lake I managed to get up in plenty of time to beat all the man made sounds of life at the campsite. I definitely wanted to hear nothing but God-created sounds.

Living in town that’s a hard thing to accomplish but in the mountains I found it to be a lot simpler to be up listening and enjoying God long before human voice could be heard. It felt so good to be sitting beside the campfire that was still burning from the night before as the Lord and I sat there together, Him in my heart and me in my chair, listening to the birds singing.

The music they were making took the place of the frogs croaking the evening before. In the background was the sound of swaying trees caught up in the wind just yards away their reflection was fixed on the quiet lake. Over and over again I praised God for His wonderful love and artwork.

Letting my imagination go I began to think about what it must be like in heaven, a place where you didn’t have to get up early to beat the material world in order to get a touch of God. Boy what a feeling thinking about being eternally surrounded by nothing but God without any competition to a totally different world.

Little did I know as I was reaching out longing to draw in this special world that I wanted to be a part of, a totally different world was just yards away where Satan was leaving his fingerprints for all to see. A man who had been shooting guns at people to scare them was severely beaten by two of his victims’ parents. The gun he once used to shoot at others was taken away from him and used as a beating stick. Widely his head was cut open as blood totally covered his bare chest and blue jeans as he staggered through our campsite searching for a ride to the nearest town to find a doctor.

I couldn’t believe it, at the same time I was admiring the rhythmic sound of a nearby woodpecker another person was enjoying the pleasure of seeing blood fly. ”Why,” I tried asking myself. Why would anyone want to be in such a world, a world of no hope, a world of hatred and sin? The more I tried to understand the harder it became as I wondered why anyone would choose to be a part of that world instead of a world of joy, love and eternal peace found in Christ.

For some reason it just didn’t make sense to me. Eternal laughter, eternal hell there was two to choose but yet there seemed to be no choice. It’s not like trying to choose between chocolate and vanilla ice cream or between peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. Something so cut and dried, so black and white, what made the decision so difficult to make. No doubt Satan has his part in the confusion, the blurred vision of what is right and wrong.

Over and over again I prayed to God for the day that for all eternity those two worlds would be separated at last. No longer able to compete with one another, firmly put in their proper places, distantly away from one another reaching at last that point of no return. Earnestly I prayed to God that before that day would come that many more people would cross that fine line between the two worlds joining myself and many others in preparation for the journey that beats all journeys. To a place that tops all places, Heaven.

Thank God I’m heaven bound.


Dear Heavenly Father, thank you Lord for going to prepare that place for us that will be the final separation between Your world and Satan’s. Forgive us Lord for the times we tend to cross the border from where You want our lives to be as we join the camp robber, Satan, in our behaviors and choices in life. May we keep our eyes fixed on you and what is to come, not what is now, that is only temporary. Amen.

© 2006 by Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

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