As a kid I always imagined streets of gold, a place where everything is white and beautiful and nice, a place where your sister didn't scratch your Weird Al CD, and you have a really cool waterbed with fish in it. When I say this out loud I realized that I was kind of a stupid kid. But hey, what can you do? I (Kind of) got more smarter.
When I was in high school I probably imagined heaven as boundless acres of topless women, the floor was edible pizza and the river Jordan was filled with drinkable (Not spoiled) 2% milk, and there is loud music being played all the time, and at every turn a topless woman compliments my strength and masculinity and gives me her name and address as says she's making Shepard's pie and expects me for dinner at 6.
Did high school me just describe most men's fantasy at one point? I mean, aside from the rivers of milk, maybe it's beer or diet coke or whatever. I realize now that high school was a lot of emotions, most of them sexually driven, which led me down some weird paths. So if you're in or around high school age and are reading this, don't worry, it kinda gets better..?
If you asked me how I imagine heaven now, at the ripe old age of 26? A bed that's big enough for my wife and I to coexist and not argue about who is hogging what, for our cars to run on free heaven juice instead of gas and to not break down ever again. I would hope my record collection could be translated into heaven and have a kick ass set-up up there with a quiet room and no neighbors ever knocking on my door saying it's too loud. Mostly I would just like to be able to sleep through the night and go on a date with my wife every once in a while.
So you can kind of draw the line through my growing up patterns, sure. But I think as we get older it prepares us for what heaven probably is. A continuation of this life, in some ways. But without all the noise and people yelling and doing bad things. I would like to imagine that heaven isn't much different, you just subtract all the bad, horrible, evil stuff.
I had an interesting conversation the other day because we were describing what we imagined hell would probably be like. We basically decided that it's you falling through an endless void while Toby Keith gets played over and over and over endlessly, only intermittent every 1,000 years by Shania Twain's Man I Feel Like A Woman. And then you land on a bed of thumbtacks every so often to get a drink, and they only serve Pepsi and Coke Zero, and there's all these snarling demons discussing how Coke Zero tastes exactly like Coke (as if they even remember!)
Anyway, while we were talking about that we got into the topic of how heaven wouldn't be great if certain evangelical leaders from our pasts were in heaven, or just people who claim to be Christ-followers who are total jackasses. To sum up what we really came to in the end is this: Heaven may or may not be a destination, but it's not going to be what you did, why you did it, or whatever rules you followed or didn't that's going to make you happy in this life or the next. Ultimately, it's going to be WHO you are that is going to make you happy. And whether that's a church or not that helps you become a better person is really your prerogative. But it makes you think.
I know, I know, there are a bunch of folks reading this who are saying: "What are you worried about heaven for, Snakes? You are gonna barely pass entrance exams."
While there is some undeniable truth there, I do have a secret; I test well.
I don't imagine I will get to heaven and they will give me the key to the city, but probably will consign me to some arduous labor for lesser good people. I imagine I will be heaven's dog catcher, and that's okay with me.
