I was born and raised in the Midwest. We have a few hills in southern Indiana though the area where I live is primarily flat. So when I traveled this last week to visit my new grandson in eastern Tennessee, my legs weren’t used to the terrain. We seemed to climb up or down everywhere we walked! In the flatlands of home I find my viewpoint greatly limited. But when I stand on a mountain top I lift up my eyes to a heavenly vista revealed before me. It’s amazing how a few hundred feet in the air can offer such a breathtaking change of perspective.
Think about the implications. If a higher altitude broadens our horizons here on earth, what should we expect to see from a real heavenly viewpoint? Is there any evidence that after we die, we will have awareness of happenings in the world we left behind?
I find reassurance that we will stay connected to our loved ones from heaven in passages from both the old and new testaments. The first of these scriptures is from the book of Deuteronomy. In the last chapter, it describes Moses climbing up Mt. Nebo to die. He is 120 years old but still has the tenacity to reach its peak. God had told Moses that he would not enter the Promised Land with the Israelites but He gave him a wonderful gift on that mountaintop.
There the Lord showed him the whole land…then the Lord said to him “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes but you will not cross over into it.”
Deuteronomy 34:1-4
It wouldn’t be humanly possible to see the whole Promised Land from this one vantage point. However, God enabled Moses to visualize it supernaturally. How much more will he show us, His children, our Promised Land. Certainly we will see our heavenly home in all its beauty. But I also interpret this passage as a promise that we will be given the gift of earthly visions that we will see supernaturally just like Moses.
Places exist where the veil between heaven and earth is thin.
In the first verse of Hebrews chapter 12, the author writes of a “great cloud of witnesses”1 urging us onward to finish the race before us. How could these saints who have gone on to heaven, encourage people they cannot see? Surely this means that they are able to reach through this thin veil. In our struggles as well as successes, they lift us up and cheer us on. Oh, what a beautiful picture of those gone before us encouraging loved ones on earth from heaven!
Of course, none of us have a clear vision of what awaits us in heaven. At best, scripture gives us only glimpses of its grandeur. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face”. 2 At this moment, my sister is living her final days on earth. Her fight with cancer has been valiant though in a short time, it will come to an end. Soon she will lift up her eyes to a heavenly vista and personally meet the Lord. Her greatest desire is to be able to somehow see her children and future grandchildren after she’s gone. I believe she will.
A heavenly vista awaits us all just beyond the veil.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains-where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1-2
1 Hebrews 12:1 2 1Corinthians 13:12
