When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun. 

        --from “Amazing Grace” 

July 6, 2010. I am waiting for my mother to die. As I was driving to the hospital from home, I meditated on the last line of “Amazing Grace”:  “. . . We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise/Than when we first begun.”

 We live in a world of limitations – a consequence of the curse of sin. The curse of sin limits every area of life—never enough resources, never enough room, never enough time—particularly time. Time tyrannizes our human existence. “There is never enough time!” “I just need a minute more!” “I am running out of time!”

Here in the hospice unit, the shortage of time screams at you. The patients are running out of time. Family and friends are hoping for just a few more minutes. Everyone needs a moment more.

Such experience reminds me that we were never made for time and space as we know it. We were made for eternity. Sin has captured and trapped us here. Fortunately, God invaded our prison in the advent of Jesus Christ. Sharing fully our situation, His sacrifice began our liberation. Our preparation for heaven was begun. 

Heaven is the place of no limitations. There is always enough, even plenty. Heaven is represented in the marriage feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). A feast is a meal of unlimited provision. Heaven is represented by a house with enough room for everyone present (John 14:2-3). Heaven is represented by a multitude of people from every tribe and tongue, too many to count (Rev. 7:9). Heave is as consisting of limitless time, so limitless that to speak of time with heaven is unnecessary and even meaningless (Rev. 21:23-25).  

Here in northeast Arkansas where I live, we have the Ozark Mountains. Their foundation is karst topography—limestone bedrock easily eroded by underground streams and caverns. Some of the largest springs in the world are found in this formation in Arkansas and Missouri. Some pour from hillsides as great waterfalls. Others, like Mammoth Spring, well up out of the ground. Mammoth Spring issues nine million gallons an hour. It is a full size river, right out of the ground. Its fountainhead pours its life resource into the rivers and forests and cultivated fields. It nourishes man and beast, farm and town. Its supply is sufficient.  

Heaven is the presence of God. To be in heaven is to be at the fountainhead of all life; life at the source (Rev. 22:1-2). Heaven is so sufficient it is never depleted in any way. John Newton, the composer of “Amazing Grace” knew this. That is why he could write “. . . no less days . . . than when we first begun.” 

Heaven is so abundant that we will never reach half our days there. My father used to remind us kids to enjoy our summer break, telling us, “It’s the fourth of July. Your break is half over.” There will never be a “half over” in heaven. There will never be a day closer to the end than to the beginning because there will never be an end. Since heaven reflects God, it is unlimited in every way as He is unlimited.

In The Last Battle of the Narnia Chronicles by C. S. Lewis, the children go to Aslan’s land. They find it a place without limits. Like a mountain (Rev. 21:10), they could always go further up, because it is limitless.  They could drive deeper to its heart though they never completely reached it. So, they raced like the wind, free and unhampered, “deeper in, further up.” They experienced unlimited exploration of an infinite land for all eternity.

I stand here on the brink of eternity, holding my mother’s hand as she makes her step into that existence. I see eternity with eyes of faith. At this moment, it is more real than her fading pulse. This reality is growing more discernable by the moment. This hope blesses me with peace. The “no less days” of heaven are waiting!

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” Revelation 11:15

Postscript: I escorted my mother to that limitless land in the early morning of July 7. God’s grace and strength proved to be sufficient for every step of this journey.

For more insight to this topic, get the book, Heaven, by Randy Alcorn. Or read the article, “Heaven,” by Peter Kreeft.