My heart has been focused on Heaven these past six months. Sometimes the thoughts have been wonderful and sometimes they have been very difficult. But one thing is for certain, the focus in Heaven is Jesus and not our earthly pleasures. That may disturb some but it's not meant to be disappointing but rather completely glorious!
On earth we look into our beloved's eyes. Gary had piercing blue eyes that I absolutely loved to look at. The more intimate the moment and the greater the love shared, the more deeply we gazed into each other's eyes.
On earth we face each other. When a man takes a woman into his arms to dance they are facing each other. You can tell the level of intimacy in a relationship by the depth of the gaze of the eyes. When a couple goes out to dinner, once again they face each other and lean in for close cherished conversation. When we steal a kiss, we are facing each other. In all the intimacies of a physical relationship we are facing each other.
Yet in Heaven, I believe we will be facing outward with our eyes intently focused on Jesus.
The marriage relationship was created to mirror, to be a shadow of, to point us towards our love relationship with Christ. Our relationship with Christ is the reality. Our marriages were just pointers or a road map that was created to guide us into the depths of intimacy with our savior! This is why faithfulness in marriage is so important to God. Marriage is intended to mirror our relationship with Jesus and his relationship with us. God is a faithful God. All through scripture God refers to Israel's lack of faith as harlotry. Why is this? It is because we are the bride of Christ and because Jesus is the lover of our souls! When we are unfaithful in our walk with God and serve other things, the main issue is that we are breaking our marriage covenant with Jesus!!! We were created to be in such an intimate relationship with God that even the beauty of the sexual union between a husband and wife, still falls short in describing what we are created for in Christ!
In heaven all of this joy and esctasy in our relationship to Christ will be realized. In heaven I will be the bride of Christ.....not the bride of Gary.
I think this is one reason why scripture is clear that our marriage relationship ends upon the death of our spouse. "Till death do us part". No where does scripture indicate that there is a delay in our marriages while we wait to die and join our beloved spouse. No. Scripture is clear that our marriages end when our precious loved one dies.
Does this bring sorrow? Well, yes I suppose it does as I am grieving the total end to my marriage. I don't have the idea that Gary and I will share a celestial cabin and I will cook him wonderful meals and life will go on as it did on earth just without any difficult days. That's not how scripture describes eternity. We will be fully alive but domestic bliss is a human earlthy experience and one that was created to be temporary.
Our focus and our delight in Heaven will be in our love relationship with Christ and being his bride! We will dwell forever in the glory of God! I'm sure that there will be deep fellowship unlike anything we've ever experienced here on this earth. But the central theme of that fellowship will be in Christ not "in marriage".
We will be face to face with our savior and gazing into his eyes! The marriage supper of the lamb is where we will dance the wedding dance with our savior! We will look into the blazing eyes of Jesus and he will look into our grace purified faces and in that moment we will understand the full meaning of what it is to be the bride of Christ!
I can only imagine...........................
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