Now

The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.  Psalm 121:8

Heaven is talked about when someone we love dearly is at the end of their life.  Eternal life is what those who know Christ look forward to when this life is over.  I’ve thought a lot about heaven and eternity this week.

PePaw, Cody’s grandpa, went to heaven this week.  He was a man of faith, who walked and talked with God.  He was ready to go home and when he left, he went peacefully.  On Friday morning, Kim, my father-in-law, drew the curtains back and looked out the hospital window, and said to his father laying in the bed behind him, “Well, Dad, it looks like a good day to go to heaven.”  He turned around after saying those words and watched PePaw take his last breaths. 

In John 11:25-26, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”  He made this statement right before raising Lazarus from the dead.  The timing of his statement and the miracle he performed is not coincidental.  Jesus was making a point.  This week that phrase has stuck with me.  “I am the resurrection and the life.”  I Am.

As I thought about and prayed for PePaw and those close to him this week, I was reminded that eternal life does not begin when we die.  It all comes down to knowing God now and continuing that relationship forever.  John 17:3 says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”  “I Am That I Am” is the name that God gives himself in Exodus 3:14.  This name for God speaks to our present.  It meets us in the now.  Jesus is the life now. 

When the chaplain at the hospital came to pray with the family after PePaw had passed, she noticed that she was talking with a family of faith.  She recognized their grief in his passing, but it was sadness, not devastation, for they knew that PePaw was in a better place.  The chaplain told the family, as they stood around PePaw, that she had seen a lot in the ten years she’s worked as a hospital chaplain.  She told them that when someone has lived by faith and has talked to God (in PePaw’s case right up until he took his last breath), they die a good death.  A peaceful death.  She said that when someone dies who does not know God, it’s never a good death.  I have only known PePaw the past eleven years.  I did not know him well, but his faith was evident during his last days.  In listening to my husband, his only grandson, talk about the last conversation he had with his grandpa, I caught a glimpse into his heart.  He knew his time here was up, and he didn’t waste any time getting ready to go.

As I thought about the chaplain’s words, I read this in 1 Timothy 4:8: “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.” (NKJV)  The promise of eternal life is a gift we can accept now through our relationship with Jesus.  We get to live on this earth and know God now, and look forward to the day when we will see him face-to-face in our new home where we will live forever.

PePaw with Jake, taken earlier this year