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How Badly Do
We Want To Go?
While I was preoccupied with some
information-hunting the other night, Tara watched a PBS television
special on the history of Ellis Island. She later related some
interesting facts and stories to me.
Between 1880 and 1920 about twenty-four
million people came through this immigration hub. (That’s a lot of
people, folks!) Most of them were Europeans, excited about coming to a
land of freedom and almost limitless opportunity.
It was at this facility that immigrants
were documented, received medical checkups and treatment, had their
backgrounds checked, etc. Some of those who came to Ellis Island with
serious health conditions were refused legal status and, with
disappointment, had with to sail back to their country of origin.
One moving story that Tara related to me
was of a European husband and wife and their three children. They were
all healthy except for the youngest daughter, who had developed on the
voyage to America a case of trachoma (a serious condition that attacks
the tissue surrounding the eyes). Because of her condition, she was not
permitted to stay. Her family members, however, could stay if they so
wished. Of course, they did not consider such to be an option. But what
the documentary related next was quite moving. For hours and hours --
between the time they learned that they could not enter the United
States and the time of their voyage back across the Atlantic -- the
father and his family could be heard in their room vehemently wailing
and weeping. They were devastated at the thought of not being allowed to
enter this wonderful country.
Understandably, the story made me think
about my own level of appreciation for this country.
More so, however, the story made me
think about my own level of appreciation for heaven. (I am not comparing
heaven to the United States. I’m merely illustrating a point.) This
family, and millions of others, were excited at the thought of coming to
this land. How excited am I at the thought of going to heaven?
Am I excited? Are you? Are our daily
lives guided by a desire to go to heaven? Or have we become so enamored
with this (comparably) decrepit world we live in, that “new heavens
and a new earth” mean nothing to us? (2 Peter 3:13) Listen: if we
don’t have much of a longing for heaven, we’re undoubtedly not headed
there.
Heaven is a real place, beloved. It’s a
place of happiness -- no sadness whatsoever. There won’t be any disease
or disaster or death -- only joy, as we serve and worship the Lord. It’s
a place of beauty, a place of righteousness, a place of rest. And it’s
forever -- eternal! (Revelation 21 and 22).
DO WE WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN? Or could it
be the desire that European family had for this earthly country eclipses
ours for the heavenly? HOW BADLY DO WE WANT TO GO?
I just wonder, sometimes.
“If then you were raised with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ is… Set your mind on
things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is
hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you
also will appear with Him in glory”
(Colossians 3:1-4).
“These all died in faith… and
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth… They seek
a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which
they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now
they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country…”
(Hebrews 11:13-16).
--Mike Noble
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