This World Is Not My Home

“How’re you doing these days?”

“Better above the ground than below it!”

Everyone chuckles.

If the second person in that conversation is a Christian, though, I have to wonder if they’ve fully researched their topic.

We used to sing a hymn that went, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through … “ Have we forgotten that? I’m all for modern medicine and am amazed at some of the things doctors and nurses can do nowadays, but have we (or I, maybe I shouldn’t put this all on you) gotten so attached to holding onto this life that we forget not only that it’s temporary, but for the child of God, the next life is going to be way better?*

Hymns aren’t exactly canon, though, so think about what Paul said, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” Paul wasn’t in a hurry to die. By that, I mean he wasn’t suddenly jumping into traffic or cutting his wrists with a pocket knife. But he was looking forward to heaven.

As a hospice chaplain, I’m around death all the time. Some people look at my job and say, “I couldn’t do that. It’d be too depressing.” (I usually think that about their jobs, too.) Sometimes it is depressing, but more often it’s not. It’s not all about loss. There are so many great moments where a family, even among their tears, can cheer a life well led, or rejoice in the fact that their loved one is now where they wanted to be (in heaven).

The saddest moments are when the person passes away and some family member (or maybe all of them) don’t know where she/he went. Did they go to heaven? Hell? Is there a heaven? I think the very saddest ones, at least for me, are those cases where the patient on hospice has a relationship with God and is confident where they’re going, but they have a child or friend who has not found that assurance. In some cases, the patient has tried all their life to share their faith with that person and they are worried that it has fallen on deaf ears.

Me, I’ll keep on singing. And sometimes I’ll do it in Bugs Bunny’s voice: “Dis woild is not me home, I’m just a-passin’ true … “

* Where did we get the idea that heaven would be us sitting around on clouds and playing harps? John Bunyan makes a point of that in “Pilgrim’s Progress”, but it’s not really Scriptural.

Will Our Pets Be in Heaven?

A friend of mine here in town, we’ll call him Ted, doesn’t go to church anymore.  He never went often, but he was going sporadically there for a little while.  Then—for some reason and I have no idea how it even came up in conversation—the preacher at the church where Ted was going told him that his dog absolutely would not be in heaven.

It wasn’t that the preacher hated Ted’s dog.  The preacher was just certain that no one’s pets would be in heaven.  None of them.  No pets in heaven.  It was a certainty!

Now, some people are going to object on the basis that saying so was insensitive since it clearly drove someone away from the church.  On that score, if the preacher truly believes there will be no pets in heaven, then I don’t mind him saying so.

What I mind is that, having read the Bible through many times, I am confident that Scripture says absolutely nothing about the topic in any way*.  I would never tell anyone their pets won’t be in heaven … nor would I tell anyone their pets will be in heaven.  If you can find anywhere in Scripture that addresses the topic at all, please leave a comment below because I think the Bible says even less about pets than it says about whether space aliens will receive salvation (http://garisonfitch.blogspot.com/2014/08/do-we-have-something-better-to-do-with.html).

Why does the preacher believe that no pets will be in heaven?  Because, he says, to get into heaven one must love God and pets do not have the capacity or ability to love.

To which I respond that either this man has never had a pet of his own or he defines love only as a feeling and not—as I believe it should be—as an action.

If I tell you I love you (over and over, even) but, when opportunities to actually show you love come up and I neglect to do so, you are well within your rights to doubt my love.  Love, I am convinced (from Scripture), is an action word.  God showed his love for man by sending his son (among other actions).  David showed his love for Jonathan through action.  Jesus showed his love for people (including us!) by coming, living, preaching, dying on the cross, resurrecting, and more.

By that metric, I would define pets as extremely loving.  If you have a pet, you know whether it likes you or not.  Especially a dog.  The wagging tail when you get home (after being gone for all of five minutes), the desire to snuggle, the way he trots up with his newest toy (or dead, disgusting thing he found in the yard) that he wants to share with you.  The way he camps right outside the bathroom door as you throw up.  I have a golden retriever who ain’t, as my father-in-law liked to describe him, “Eat up with brains”, but he certainly seems to be full of love.  Even my cat shows love for us (more for my wife, even though I’m the one who wanted him!).

Now, does my dog love God?  That I couldn’t tell you.  I don’t know that he has the capacity.  However, it sure seems to me like he performs well the function(s) God created him for.  I can’t say the same about me!

Will I see my pets through the years in heaven one day?  I can’t, from Scripture, say yes.  I’d like to think so.  But I also can’t say, from Scripture, that I won’t.  It’s a topic of pure conjecture and my only issue is going to be with anyone who claims to have arrived at a definitive answer.  Unless they can show me something in Scripture I’ve never seen before, I’m going to think they’ve let a wish become their belief.

*Yes, in heaven Jesus gets a horse.  Whether the rest of us will get one, I don’t know.