Our Real Home

The other night I watched a thrilling, edge of your seat movie.  I'm refraining from saying the title because I don't want to spoil part of the movie for those who haven't seen it yet.  If you've seen it, you'll know which one I'm talking about.  In the movie, the husband and wife are get lost in their own subconsciousness's and live in the dream world they have built together. They live there for so long that that when it is time to live in the real world, the wife has trouble adjusting and becomes obsessed with the idea that the dream world was the real world.  She is desperate to live there forever and ends up taking her life to "achieve" this goal. While this is a very extreme example of wanting to go to her "real" home, it reminded me of how this world we live in is only a temporary home and how our real home is in heaven.  Her fixation on going to what she thought was the real world, made me want a fraction of that- to keep me grounded in what's really important. 

It made me think of saints and visionaries who have had glimpses of heaven and conversations with Jesus and Mary that have showed them just how ordinary our world is compared to the extraordinary dwelling place of the Father.  After seeing glimpses of another world with the angels and saints, these saints have begged to stay.  Some were granted their request and have been taken to their eternal home at young ages, while others learned to use every moment here on earth preparing for the "ultimate reality" waiting for them in heaven.  It really makes me think of how I would live my life differently if I knew the true joy and love waiting for me in heaven.  I think I would spend less time making myself comfortable here on earth, and more time preparing to be in my eternal home.  I'm sure I would turn every ordinary moment into a grace-filled one so I could store up my treasures in heaven. 

Psalm 84

1How lovely is your dwelling place,

O Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

2I long, yes, I faint with longing

to enter the courts of the Lord.

With my whole being, body and soul,

I will shout joyfully to the living God.

3Even the sparrow finds a home,

and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young

at a place near your altar,

O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, my King and my God!

4What joy for those who can live in your house,

always singing your praises.

Mathew 19-21

19“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.