Part One
Heaven is here, or as Jesus put it, the “kingdom of God is in your midst.”
Heaven as a place to earn remains a dominant myth even though that’s never how it’s described.
And it’s not just here, Jesus said it’s hidden like treasure in a field.
If you were born believing you had to align your beliefs in the exact right order, join the right group, or practice the right morality to ultimately earn goodness after you die…
You’re in for a twist.
Heaven is here.
For thousands of years, people believed God to be a deity in the sky watching and judging their every move, sending bad weather and illness when they made the wrong sacrifice or missed the mark.
So God showed up to tell us we were wrong about Him.
Jesus was love and nonjudgement, welcoming everyone to the table.
He healed and included, challenging the religious establishment of hierarchy, superiority, and earning God’s favor.
He spoke to people like they were already worthy, like they were mirror images of the Divine.
God was not angry, vengeful, and waiting to punish.
God was kind, merciful, and eager to heal.
This is good news.
Sure, this reward-and-punishment version of God still exists in modern circles, but for those who know the story of Jesus well, the power structure behind such a belief system is evident.
Jesus gave us a picture of God that we could better understand, and he told us again and again…
Heaven is here.
If you’re waiting to die to wholly embrace the good news, you’re missing out on a good time here. Heaven isn’t just a post-death reality.
“The kingdom of God is in your midst.”
We aren’t waiting for some future date to sing about it and celebrate.
We don’t need to die to sit around the table together, eat good food, and hold communion.
And if you’re looking, you’ll see that every evening when the sun begins to fall, sometimes the light hits the streets just right, and they turn to gold.
Heaven is here.
If you knock, the door will be opened.
What does that mean for us in this age?
Where is it exactly?
And why did God hide it?
Is it that simple, if we seek it we’ll find it?
In recent months, I’ve been romanced by these questions, seduced into seeking the answer.
He is opening my eyes, She is softening my heart.
And the teaching of Jesus proves true yet again.
Heaven is here.
Part Two
I already believed Him, but recently, I had an experience that brought me further than belief.
I found the treasure in the field, and it went like this.
I’m watching my son slide on a cold, sunny December morning.
I feel the world as I know it falling away as I sit and watch.
Nothing is required of me in this moment, and peace settles deep into my bones. I am wholly present to my son’s joy, to my own grounding.
We both feel it.
Heaven.
He climbs up and slides down the giant inflatable over and over again. He watches for my reaction as he lands. He laughs and enjoys the wonder of being a body.
I can’t move, I don’t want to lose touch with what I’ve found.
I think to myself…What is this experience? Have I ever felt so content in my life?
What are these moments when the fruit of the Spirit overflows from somewhere deep inside of us, and all that love, joy, and peace is almost too much to contain?
What do we call it when all the goodness comes at once?
Heaven.
My husband and my younger son are in the next room.
It strikes me that I am taken care of at this moment in time, that I am taken care of in eternity.
I feel it like electricity in my throat and jaw, the spiritual manifesting in the physical—something that happens in church all the time.
I become wholly aware that the kingdom of God is in my midst.
Heaven.
There are people walking around, and I wonder if they know they can have it too, that everything else is just a distraction.
I wonder if they’ve heard the good news, that there is nothing left to earn, that the Divine took human form not because we are unloveable but because we are so incredibly, unbelievably, unconditionally loved.
I pray that, at some point in their lives, these people who I see but don’t know, who I love but will never meet, can know this too.
Heaven.
This life is more than I could’ve asked for…in fact, I’m not sure I would’ve known what to ask.
I realize I could drown in this stream of peace, I could let it all go because I trust the hands that hold it all together.
The line between life and death are blurred in this moment.
My son continues to slide, over and over and over again.
Heaven.
I’m struck by the truth that I’ve been led to this place in the field to dig up the treasure.
I didn’t know where it was, it didn’t come by my own doing. I started seeking years ago, and here I was.
For me in this season, seeking was choosing love over revenge, silence over social media, and self-reflection over blame. It was asking my loved ones to tell me when I got it wrong.
It was a season of intense soul-refinement, of ego death, of iron sharpening iron.
And then, like a thief in the night, She found me.
Heaven.
I don’t need anything at all.
I don’t need my writing to be read.
I don’t need a career or accomplishments or anything else to be here.
I am overcome by the truth that being alive is gift enough.
As I sit there a moment longer, I feel the time coming to rebury the treasure.
Is there a way I can stay here forever? Can I do less and be present to this instead? God, please, don’t go…
I sat for minutes in the wake of the Divine, of Heaven, overcome by gratitude, fully grounded in a new awareness.
The kingdom of God is in our midst, we just have to open our eyes to see it.
There was no sense to make, this moment existed beyond rationality and logic.
The practice was presence to the sacred, but the truth was greater than that:
The sacred is everywhere.
The Spirit overflows in every slide and laugh, every bite and feeling of hope, every moment of connection and gratitude.
And when you finally find that treasure in the field, you sell everything you own to buy it.
It’s that good.
Heaven isn’t somewhere else—that’s good news, isn’t it?
Heaven is here.