Hope of Heaven: Why It's Ok When Life Sucks

I live in a pretty crummy, 2 bdrm apartment with my wife and two kids. And just to pay off all that seminary debt, I work all week, long hours, and my wife works overnight on the weekends.

I can accept this because I have a hope of heaven. I'm looking forward to heaven, when things will be better. Not just better, but perfect.

Now some would say, "That's pathetic. You believe a lie that was sold to people long ago to oppress them. After all, it was the masters who first told this lie to their slaves. Oh, they said, don't worry about being slaves in THIS life! There's a life after death! That's when things will get better for you!"

I don't doubt some have used the hope of heaven to exploit people. People are wicked.

But rather than criticize the Christian hope of heaven, let's do something that rarely, if ever, happens. Let's give some close scrutiny to the alternative.

Suppose there is no heaven - or should I say imagine? Yes, let's! Imagine there's no heaven. This life is all there is. When you die, you become nothing. You cease to exist.

Now, in this context of no heaven, what do you live for? Why are you alive? What is the purpose of your life? What do you WANT it to be? What do you want to get out of life? What would you like to achieve? What's on your bucket list?

I think most people today, at least in America, if they were honest, would explain the goals of their lives in financial terms. They'd probably say something about retirement, something about a nice house, perhaps on a golf course or a lake, not having to work, being comfortable, traveling at a leisurely pace, etc. All of this takes money, of course, and a heck of a lot of it. So most people feel like they can get what they want out of life if they just have enough money.

Money. Stuff. Comfort. Security. These are the goals of your life, if you've no hope of heaven.

In other words, if you have no hope of heaven, your goal is to make as much money as you can so you can stop working and live the good life of leisure and luxury.

Oh, that pull of leisure and luxury is strong, isn't it?

So maybe I come along and say, hey, do you really want to wait till you're retired to live the life of luxury? You know that big beautiful house with the gorgeous kitchen on a golf course you've always wanted? You qualify for some really nice mortgage packages. Let me tell you about interest-only loans and adjustable rate mortgages...

How about a nice big SUV with leather seats and a TV in the back to shut the kids up? Your life will love it! All her girlfriends will be envious, and she'll be very, very, very appreciative. You know what I mean. Ahem. Oh, you can't afford that $60k car? Sure you can! Have you ever heard of a lease? Heck, at these low, low monthly payments, you can buy TWO!

Say, that's a nice computer huh? We're doing zero down and zero percent financing for 3 months! That's plenty of time to save up the money and pay it off! What? You want to know the interest rate after 3 months? Why worry about that? What are you my mother? Who cares? Look at this computer! It's SOOOOO fast!

You deserve the life of luxury, and you deserve it now. Credit cards can make it happen. Easy credit is your friend. Everyone's in debt. It's not sad, it's amusing. It's just how life is! Who cares! Besides, you gotta have some debt to get that FICO score up there!

And you begin to think that obtaining these things are what will give your life meaning. Accomplishing this is what will put a smile on your wife's face, and then you will be satisfied that you lived your life to the fullest, and that you deserved to live the life you did.

To put it another way, if you can get all this stuff, you can justify your existence.

Easy credit can make you FEEL like your existence is justified. It affirms that yes, you DO deserve these things!

And so those who have no hope of heaven become enslaved to the banks, who have them running on a treadmill indefinitely.

And the sad part is, these things NEVER satisfy. When we seek to satisfy our desires, the desires only get stronger. Ask any rich person how much money will be enough, and if they're honest, they'll answer in the words of John Rockefeller: "Just a little more."

I don't care HOW rich you are, you'll always want more. I don't care HOW big your house is, you'll find a way to fill it with crap and complain about it being too small. I don't care HOW nice your brand new SUV is, because in 2 years it won't be gorgeous and shiny anymore, and you'll want the latest model. I don't care how nice that new computer is, they'll update the OS and your super fast computer will be slow as an old lady with a walker in 2 years.

When you have no hope of heaven, there IS no reward because there IS no satisfaction. Life becomes all about acquiring stuff, and no amount of stuff is ever enough.

So you've got that big house on the golf course with the gorgeous kitchen, but you hate the thing because it's so ridiculously expensive and it means you'll be working till you're 90 to pay the silly thing off! And you loathe that stupid car that's ALWAYS breaking down, and it's NEVER a simple fix but ALWAYS something wrong with the wiring or some computer and the poor mechanics have no idea how to fix it. You'll always want a new one in 2 years. And a new TV. And a new computer. A new cell phone. When does it end?

Meanwhile, you just keep paying, and you never get ahead. And what are you getting in return for all this tireless, exhausting effort? Ultimately everything you're getting in return is meaningless and empty. 

Often what looks like a reward turns out to be a burden.

So you are ultimately sold a pack of lies. You think you're acquiring all these great things, these rewards that justify your existence, that prove you have a right to be alive. But in reality, you're just burdening yourself more and more heavily every single day.

You can't justify your existence because you didn't bring about your existence.

Let's think about what it means to justify something. Suppose you're on trial for murder. You killed someone. You admitted it freely. How can you justify what you've done? You could claim the murder was in self defense, right? And if you can prove that you killed in self defense, then the killing will be justified and you won't go to jail. They'll justify your action saying, He did what he had to do.

If I wanted to know why you exist, who would I ask? I can't ask you. You didn't do the deed. You didn't create yourself. How could you possibly know why you exist, much less whether or not that's a GOOD reason.

This is why we want that luxurious lifestyle. We figure that if we're blessed with such things, it means that the reason we exist must be a good one. Here's life rewarding me! The stuff we acquire proves that we're worthy of living.

And so, you lose your life savings in the stock market, and rather than start over from the beginning, you jump off a building. Why go on living? My life has no meaning, apparently, or this wouldn't have happened. Now I'll never achieve my goals. I might as well be dead. There is no good reason for my existence.

But Christians have a hope of heaven. We don't need our circumstances in life to justify our existence. We can acknowledge that God created us, and maybe we don't fully understand why, but we trust that we'll understand in heaven. Maybe life sucks. Maybe you work hard for a decade pursuing the ministry only to leave it behind. Maybe you work hard at a marriage that only ends in tears and bitterness.

Or maybe you're just poor. Sad. Alone. Bitter.

Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
    nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the deer's;
    he makes me tread on my high places.


When life falls apart, when churches close their doors, when livelihoods are destroyed, when friends commit suicide, when children are abused by priests, when people in church are more evil than the people outside the church, when careers end abruptly, when marriages come undone, when spouses cheat or just ignore...

...we who have a hope of heaven can look forward to that day when God himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes, when death and disease will be no more, when our sinful desires will finally completely melt away and we are finally and fully satisfied in knowing God and seeing Jesus face to face and being accepted and embraced in his presence forever.

That's why I am alive. To make it to that Day. It'll be worth it to get there, no matter the cost. As the old hymn goes, "Dark, dark has been the midnight, but dayspring is at hand...it were a well-spent journey though seven deaths lay between."

This is the only path of glory: to hope in Christ, to hope in heaven.