The Cerulean Palace
The next part of "Between You and Me"
Aquamarine has always been my favorite color. It’s got all of the purity of one of those tourist waterfronts and all of the vitality of nature. There’s a place in a video game I really like to go, because it’s covered in this color, and it’s got this beautiful song going on in the background at night. In fact, I’d encourage you to listen to this as you read. It’ll make it easier for both of us to understand where I’m coming from:
I’ve asked God several times that my house in heaven would look like this, or something like it, without the pagan looking statues. Shimmering glass, warm shallow water, and blue-green lights, with reflections only night can illuminate, like suburban streetlights off the rain-pooled pavement. And although I don’t think we’re exactly getting mansions out there, I’m pretty sure Jesus says we get some sort of place that He has prepared for us . . . and I don’t think it will be underwhelming, so I will go on . . .
If you came to visit, you’d be graced by a gentle mist that felt as refreshing as it felt personal, like the spirit of someone who loved you commanded it to cool your forehead, as quickly as the heat of the day had caused a drop of sweat to form.
Sophistry? Maybe. But this is me reaching for something beyond my perceptions of reality, and into something that is deeply within my subconscious desires—so cut me some slack. If my abode, my resting place, becomes something close to this, I don’t know if I would ever want for anything again; that I would ever dream again, for I would be living my dreams. Heaven knows I wouldn’t ever want a place like that on this side of eternity; the water bill would be through the roof. But when rivers of living water flow freely there, this becomes a possibility.
But should I be this excited about real estate in heaven? As much as I’m sure I’ll love it, I have a certain fondness for the earth. I mean, I’ve lived my whole life here. People have visited the moon but then they get all these rocks in their shoes and they’re always saying they liked the adventure, but they’re very happy to be back.
At the same time, I’m listening to a lot of Christians who long for heaven, who want to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. And frankly, if we were able to see what it’s really like, I think we’d have some sort of mass exodus one way or another.
But do you see the incompleteness of heaven? As broken as the earth is, we still long to stay here, we still yearn to discover its beauty. There are whole organizations around making sure mother nature doesn’t get pissed off at us for throwing garbage in the ocean or using axe body spray. And in heaven, there are people crying. They’re still asking God when He will vindicate the martyrs. He will wipe every tear from our eyes, but there are still tears to wipe!
I can only conclude that we yearn both for earth and for heaven. We are like birds who want to fly away, but we love our nests and children we have made on the ground. We want to stay with them. Though God Himself is in heaven, humans are still unsatisfied.
Well, we were made for earth and to earth we will return. Actually, this is Jesus’ whole plan. You probably know about the New Earth, and the giant gold cube coming down from the sky. That is the actual plan. If you’re in Christ, you will inhabit the glorious renewal of the earth itself – the Venn Diagram of Heaven and earth will finally connect completely together, and that is where you will be. This is less complex and mysterious than it sounds. Your feet will actually be on the renewed-earth floor. Your renewed, unwrinkled hands will actually feel your coffee cup sleeve.
In a spiritual and real sense, you are there right now. The Bible says we are presently seated in heavenly places with Christ, but also mentions that Christ, in a future event, who is our life, will be fully revealed. And that is what I’m talking about here, the future event of the New Earth. Randy Alcorn starts his famous book on Heaven basically saying that Heaven is just a town you visit as a layover. Nice town for sure, but it’s not the destination, the New Earth is!
Okay, nice. But what about my cool waterpark-house? Did Jesus say He was preparing a place for me like a generous builder who makes a house for His friend, or did He say it more generally, like God creating earth to be inhabitable for humans? To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t think God is preparing an apartment in section 8 housing for me, but I also don’t know if I’ll even really want a house at all by the time I get there. I can probably just sleep in the cushiony grass without getting any ticks and cuddle up with some tigers or something.
I know this is silly, and the point I’m making isn’t all too Christ-centered, but hear me out here: let’s say God gives me a crappy apartment in heaven’s bad part of Chicago. Well no worries, I think I’ll be busy beholding the Creator of the Universe. But what about the New Earth? On the New Earth, I am 99.99% sure that not only will I have my dream home, but that I will make it. I’ll pay my insane water bill to God Himself.
How can I be so sure? Because I have 10 billion years to do it. The New Earth gives me what everybody on earth right now is clamoring for but slips through their fingers – time. Elon Musk wants to inhabit Mars (I think he still wants to do that, he might be a little distracted with politics right now), and he’s really getting there. If we keep throwing money at that, somebody will probably go there in my lifetime or my kid’s lifetime. A conservative (young earth creationist) view of humanity says that we’ve been around for 6,000 years, and on the other side of the pendulum, evolutionists say we’ve been around for over 300,000 years. Imagine 2 million years. I think we will have figured out how to travel between planets and probably be on our 4th trial run of hopping between our galaxy and the next one over. But 2 million years is less than a fraction of a percent of infinity. Actually, it is nothing at all.
Under our new immortal state and under the direct, clear communication of the Holy Spirit, we as humans can now do anything.
Think about this practically for a moment. Because this has huge implications for you. Although the specifics are theoretical, you will actually experience an infinite amount of time on God’s handcrafted super-earth, without an ounce of corruption. This will be your future. And not only is this your future, but this is what you will be doing for the vast majority of your lifetime. Remember, you got like 80 or 90 years here out of infinity.
For me, maybe I spend my first 70,000 years just practicing piano, learning heaven’s new notes, playing the new chords God gave us in the most recent update, and then for another 170,000 years I get bored of piano and get into painting with the new colors God has given us. And then, 450,000 years later, I’ll get into building. I’ll scout out a planet with a lot of water, close enough to a sun that it always feels like summer, and lay my first piece of handmade stained glass on the floor. It’s a very large project, but it doesn’t matter. Every moment is a blissful joy. The Father Himself sings love over me all day in refreshing mists and splashes of clear waters.
Oh, and my friends from college said they’re all going to help me build this cerulean palace too. They said they looked it over, and even with a 250,000-year time commitment, they were able to carve out some time in their schedules.
Welcome to Between You and Me. It’s called that because I ask that we keep this between us two. A lot of these things are quite personal, y’know? Wouldn’t want these things floating around on the internet where Christians can whip my words with the Bible, would we?
But it’s also called Between You and Me because there is a lot between me and God. There’s a lot between God and me and all of us, isn’t there? This book is an attempt to name those things so they can be healed. One chapter at a time.
Waylon Woody is a writer and minister living in West Milford, NJ.
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