And the Weary Are At Rest

He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. -- 1 Corinthians 3:8

I have never been bothered much about what kind of reward I will receive.   It always seemed to me that not going to hell, not collecting the “wages of sin” had me ahead of the game.  The rest is gravy.  I don’t think I will have any envious or ill feelings toward some person who sacrificed and served the Lord in some extreme way should that person receive some great accolade or superior position in heaven.  It’s heaven.  How bad can it be? 

You know what does worry me about heaven?  Will I have to hang out in town all the time?  Can I go fishing?  Will there be horses to ride and hounds to follow?  I’m not even going to ask about guns, knives and motorcycles.  Everything we know about heaven is, I think, by analogy.  The joys of the spiritual body are not those of the physical.  Still, I wonder what carries over, what ecstasies in this life reflect, however feebly and imperfectly, the bliss of heaven.

We didn’t have air conditioning when I was a kid, so in the evening with a little breeze, just as the sun set, when the light is so – I don’t know – heavenly, that was my favorite time of day.  It meant the work was over.  I could rest for a while.  There was good food and something cold to drink waiting in the kitchen.  In the summertime when there was no school, the cows were milked, the hogs and chickens were fed, and all the hay that was down has been baled and put in the barn, that’s about how I always imagined heaven might be. 

I suppose other people are different and want crowns and streets of gold, and lots of singing.  I hope those missionaries and saints and others all get the rewards they deserve and desire and even more.  I have friends who have given up everything in this life to serve their Lord and Savior.  They have humbled themselves, and the Lord will lift them up.  They have earned acclaim and exaltation.  Scorned, ridiculed, and humiliated by the world, they have stood firm against everything the world, the flesh, and the devil could throw at them.   Those folks have earned the highest and grandest delights that the Father can shower upon His children.

I don’t have much coming, and I don’t expect much.  For my part, I think I would be willing to walk through hell barefoot if I knew there was that never-ending summer evening around a table with those I love waiting on the other side.