HE AV E NEARTH ON

We’ve all come up with some sort of reason why we’re all here on Earth. That’s faith.No-one gave you a briefing before you entered the world.No-one told you how you should live, what you should do, or why you needed to exist.

But in your head right now there’s something you think is worth living for. You’ve put your faith in your reason for being here. Maybe it’s to live for a higher being or God, or to do good, or to become influential in this world, or to protect your family and friends, or to appreciate good music or art, or to just keep doing the things that make you

happy. Maybe it’s love, or success, or money, or happiness, or chocolate.

If you can relate to any of those things, I’d say your faith isn’t so different from mine. Especially if it’s for chocolate. Personally I’m living to experience all of those things. But they aren’t

my reason for living. My faith - my suspected reason for existing - is in God. And for the record, I believe he intended for us to live and do good, to become influential in this world, to protect our family and friends, to appreciate good music and art, and to just keep doing the things that make us happy.

We all have faith in something, right?

F A I T H

You don’t have to be ‘religious’ to understand this.

You don’t have to believe in God to find this interesting.

This is not a Bible.

This is not an advert for Christianity.

This isn’t going to convert you. This probably won’t change where you put your

faith. I’m not trying to do that.

This is me. My faith. My feelings. What I believe. Things from my head in words and pictures.

Whether you can relate to it isn’t for me to worry about...

...but I think you’ll find it interesting.

Have you ever been doing something and got so totally immersed in it that you lost track of time?

Have you ever been doing something that made you think you were made to do it?

Have you ever been doing something and thought you could do it forever?

Have you ever been doing something and got so totally immersed in it that you lost track of time?

Have you ever been doing something that made you think you were made to do it?

Have you ever been doing something and thought you could do it forever?

I have.It happens quite a lot actually.

Like most people, I do the things that I love to do. For me that’s chilling out with friends, spending an evening with my girlfriend, going out for a meal with my family, playing football, drawing, and eating chocolate. (Not all at the same time.)

These are the things I can get so totally lost in that an hour can pass in what seems like 5 minutes, things I could do for much longer than

I do and not get bored or uninterested in them, things that I often think are so good that I was supposed to do them, to experience them, to enjoy them.

But there’s something more than just stuff we like to do. There’s something deeper. There’s emotion. If you think about each thing you love to do, there’s a reason why you find it enjoyable or beneficial, and that’s what makes you keep going back to it. For me, when I’m with family its that togetherness and love that we show to each

other; the feeling made stronger considering these moments are limited in a lifetime.

Playing football (and supporting my team) is a combination of joy, sorrow, enthusiasm, apathy, and occasional delirium. It’s the rare moments of joy or even delirium that make the love of it worthwhile. There’s probably something you support with as much enthusiasm, if it isn’t football or another sport, maybe it’s a band, or an activity, or even a person. What I’m saying is you don’t have to share my interest in football

- there are a number of things we do again and again just for the thrill of it. When you’re donning the team colours as they lift the cup, or your favourite band perform in front of you and thousands of other people bellowing back the words, or the moment you realised the one you love loves you back just as much.

Moments of delirium.

Let’s branch out further than what can be considered a hobby. There are a lot of things I do which prompt the emotion of joy. Not major things, not things I would respond with if someone asked me what I liked to do. But in many ways all the more important than those mentioned previously.

• Making my family proud. • Cheering someone up when they were totally

down.• Going out of my way to give someone a hand.• Doing something to make someone’s day.• Bonding with friends.• Caring more about the presents I give than

the ones I receive.• Being there for someone when really I’d

rather be somewhere else.• Feeling needed or wanted in a group.• Receiving a gift that truly means something.

Those are all things that make me feel good. I’ve experienced all of these things and you probably have too. They make me feel like I’m making the most of the life I live. They make me feel alive. I believe the world was intended to be full of these things. You don’t have to consider yourself religious or have to believe in God to know what feels good and what feels right. Personally I do, I believe God made the world with this in mind and it was our greed, jealousy and hatred that made it any different.

• Ignoring your family.• Neglecting the people who need you.• Rejecting an opportunity to make someone’s

day.• Hurting your friends.• Demanding to receive more from others

than you give.• Avoiding situations that are difficult.• Feeling unwanted or unneeded in a group.• Failing to receive anything meaningful.

Those are all things that make me feel terrible. I’ve inevitably done all of those things and you probably have too. They make me feel like I’m not getting much out of the life I live. They make me feel empty and not alive. As you’d expect, the God I believe in didn’t intend for these to happen and it’s self-centredness that causes families to be ignored, or ignorance that causes the people who need us to be neglected, and our greed that causes us to be unhappy with what we’ve received.This isn’t saying to become a Christian because it’ll make you happy. I’m not saying I experience the first list because being a Christian makes me perfect. It doesn’t.

Like I mentioned, I have done all of the things on the second list at some point in my life and whilst I’m not proud of those, they make me human. Ignoring my belief in God, I still know from experience that all the things on the first list make me happy, they fill me up with a sense of achievement, a sense of belonging, a sense of being alive. They are what I put my faith in as being right, and being worthwhile whether there is a God that intended for me to enjoy them or not.

One thing that is plain to see is that these emotions and experiences, good or bad, never last forever. The good ones we’d love to, the bad ones we’re thankful they don’t. We say ‘I could do this forever’ when we’re doing something we can never quite get enough of.

But that’s just it, we’ve never experienced this sensation, this satisfaction, this delirium for more than a moment. It’s limited. It starts, we enjoy it, and it ends. It never gives us a satisfaction forever, instead we move on to something else for enjoyment or a thrill or for fun.

We can keep going going back to the fridge for more chocolate and we can keep meeting up with our family and friends for that feeling of togetherness and friendship, but eventually the chocolate bar will run out and the friends and family will return to focussing their own lives. If these things lasted forever, we’d be in paradise.

A never ending time loving and laughing with friends and family.

Or a never ending chocolate bar.

It’d be heaven.

Alternatively, those experiences which make us feel terrible are not to be desired. We don’t want to have to do them, and if we see them coming we usually try and steer clear of them. But sometimes when we do have to do something that isn’t enjoyable and we’d rather be doing something else, we say ‘It took forever.’

Like the good experiences, the bad ones dont last forever either. The pain is limited. It starts, we struggle through it, and it ends.We aren’t forced to endure them forever if we find something good instead.

When we find ourselves doing them whether we really wanted meant to or not, it’s a horrible feeling when we have to endure them. If we only lived a life of these things we’d be totally dead to the goodness of the world.

A never ending time of rejecting the people who need you.

Or never ending hurting.

It’d be hell.

Heaven and Hell. Those expressions are used in everyday language whatever you have faith in. God or no God.There’s always an aim for being happy or content. No-one in their right mind sets out to be depressed in their life. You know the things that make you happy, that make you feel alive. If you could do these things forever you could say you’d be in Heaven, whether you belief in it or not. Why do we do that?Why do people who don’t believe in Heaven sometimes aim for it?Why do people who do believe in Heaven aim for it on Earth? Isn’t it for when we die?

Firstly, I don’t think it’s an imaginary idea.You could say that because people know the idea of what heaven is, they suggest the possibility of it as some sort of imaginary dream or ideal that isn’t realistically possible. But even when when we do that, we know it would be good and we long for it. That longing for something good and something eternal is exactly what I believe in. What if that longing for something good forever was inside us because it’s a genuine possibility?I believe it’s something Jesus pointed us towards. You don’t have to believe in him, he’s left that open to you. Eye-witness accounts in the Bible tell me that Jesus promised something more. I’m

feel alive seek eternity

sure you’re aware of Heaven being associated with the Christian faith and it comes through what Jesus said while he was on Earth.I think that we long for something eternally good, to be eternally happy, because we can be in that place eventually. I believe that these experiences of satisfaction and enjoyment are glimpses of heaven. They’re a snapshot, a gap in the fence, a dripping leak from a tap, a moment where two worlds collide and heaven touches earth. They occur when I feel the happiest, the most loved, the most compassionate, the most useful.

In Heaven, the terrible things that often degrade the world and our lives don’t exist. That’s not just a happy fantasy where instead of hating, everyone goes around saying nice things and skipping around amongst endless fields of daisies. It’s something difficult and it’s something serious.Seriously good. Evil doesn’t survive. Rejection doesn’t survive. Hatred doesn’t survive. Disease doesn’t survive. And so when we are doing things that use our gifts, whether it’s the gift of a talent for football, a gift of a sweet-tooth for chocolate, a gift for leading people to do good, or a gift of a considerate heart to help someone in need, they all make us a little bit more suitable for a time when nothing but these sensations is possible. Prepared for Heaven.

prepare yourselfglimspe heaven

We all have

FAITH in something,

right?