Unimaginable

You've heard it said, and my pastor said it again this past Sunday, that you will eat in Heaven - you will feast in Heaven - and not gain a pound.  You won't have to worry about calories.  You won't have to count points.  You won't have to think about skipping that dessert.

True and...not quite.

We will absolutely feast in Heaven, and I can't wait.  I don't know if there's anything greater than bacon, but you can bet I'm looking excitedly forward to holy, heavenly bacon.  Apple pie, sure, but....God's apple pie?  (Still might not be better than grandma's, but I'm game.)  And we won't gain weight.  And we won't count calories or points or bites of dessert.

But it's not like Heaven is going to be a gorge fest.

It's not like we'll get to Heaven and eat ourselves silly, browsing the grand buffet for eternity while filling our plates again and again.  I know that sounds like Heaven to some people, but that's not the promise.  The promise of Heaven is not that you get to do whatever you want, as much as you want, to whatever excess that you want, and not have to pay the price for it.

The promise of Heaven is something else entirely.  Let me think of the word.

It's not that you will eat endlessly; your appetite will change.  You will have this body that isn't the perfect body, but it will be your perfect body, the body created perfectly for you as God intended you to be.  You will eat delicious foods, and your body will accept them because there will be no illness, no disease, no allergies even to make you think twice about that next bite.  You won't have to test your sugars.  You won't have to guard your gluten.  You won't have to choose between potatoes and cornbread because your body will be able to handle both starches in the same meal.  Those and more!

And you will eat only until you're satisfied, and your perfect body will find perfect satisfaction in the perfect food.  You will not be hungry.  You won't be scoping out seconds.  You will have as much as you need, and it will be perfectly enough and you will be perfectly content with that.  And it will feel like a feast.

You will always be satisfied, you will always be full.  There will be no saying that God doesn't feed you enough; Heaven is perfectly enough, and I don't think we understand that concept down here.  I don't think we really have a grasp on "enough," on contentment, on satisfaction.  But that is Heaven.

And it's not just about food.  See?  That's the glory of it.  

Every time we talk about Heaven, people inevitably try to put it in terms of what we would do more of, have more of, indulge in more of if we could do so here without consequence.  It's this glorious place that is more than we have now.  I don't think more is a helpful descriptor.  I think it makes us miss the promise of Heaven, which is not that we will have more, but that our everything is going to change and we are going to have enough.

Our everything is going to change so radically that we can't even imagine it here.  That's why Heaven is unimaginable.  It's not bigger, grander, greater; it's perfect.  But we have no concept of perfect that is not frail, fragile, and flexible.  We've conceptualized perfect from our imperfect bodies, and that skews everything.  Heaven won't be like that.

Because we won't be like this.

Everything you crave here - nutritionally and otherwise - is going to change.  Your appetite is going to change.  And then you will find Heaven satisfying.  It will be enough.  It will be perfect.

I smile a little bit every time I hear someone talk about feasting in Heaven.  I smile because I know it's not going to be like that, because it reminds me that I'm not going to be like this.  I can't wait to see what I look like in Heaven.  Can't wait to feel what perfect and enough and perfectly enough feel like in their purest, most radical forms.  I can't even imagine.

Go ahead and try.  Think about Heaven.  Just know that it won't be like that because you won't be like this, and let that incredible truth take hold of your heart.  Can you imagine what you might be like?  

Of course not, but it's fun to try.

Now, somebody pass the bacon.