Day 218
Imagine there's a horrible natural disaster that's just beginning to hit, and you're quickly whisked away into a completely safe shelter with lots of big, safe windows.
You and a whole bunch of other people are safe, but you stand there watching in horror as millions more perish outside.
Sound cool? Sound fun? No, it doesn't. The problem with some ideas about heaven is the same thing. They see it as a place where the wicked aren't allowed in, and in fact the list of what you need to do and the person you need to be is so long for some people, it's hard to imagine many at all would ever get inside. The tiny shelter looks tinier and tinier all the time.
This journey I'm on right now from 39 to 40 quickly became a journey of perspective. Right from the beginning, as I began telling you about fun or interesting stories from my life, or shared my thoughts on various topics, I realized I was like a man standing above the fog line, looking down on his city, before deciding where to go next. Is Heaven where I'll go after I die? I believe so. I believe so. It is my belief that we are all welcome there, and will all be sheltered from the storms of this world.
The problem of heaven is not that people are actually locked out, or sentenced to hell. The problem of heaven is, some human beings would like you to think this. They've written down their stories in books, and they've convinced you that because their stories are thousands of years old, they must be true (you know, like Poseidon and Zeus). They must have been written by God, or at least been heavily influenced by Him. I'm not sure why this is. I'm not sure why verses about stoning people to death for their sins is considered God's holy word, and don't get me started on the many silly passages detailing what kind of haircuts we should have or how our crops should be laid out.
At some point in life, your eyes are either opened or they're not. At some point, you either realize what's good and what's not so good about scripture, or you do not. At some point, you either believe God loves us all or you believe God sends many, many souls to hell for all eternity, and you realize both can't be true. The problem of heaven isn't a real problem at all; some people just make it a problem, and they really need to stop doing that.
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