“THE HEART OF MAN IMAGINED!”

1 Corinthians 2:9                            (ESV)

“But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor “THE HEART OF MAN IMAGINED”, what GOD has prepared for those who love HIM".

Recently I was BLESSED to see a friend  I have known for longer than I care to admit.  She has been diagnosed with a cancer that doctors have said will more than likely win the battle for her physical life before the end of the year.  Seeing her husband do whatever he can for her as her ability to live life slips from her grieves me to my core.  It seems that she is losing a treacherous battle, that is until I remember something said to me in 1996.

My younger sister was 33 years old when she was diagnosed with Gastric Carcinoma, or Stomach Cancer for us lay people.   She died 3 days after her 34th birthday.   One day following her diagnosis, while talking with her about what Heaven was going to be like, I was talking about seeing our “Grandma” and other relatives who had gone on before.  My sister said in an almost joyous sounding voice, “I want to see JESUS”!  My tears begin to flow as I thought of her apparent priorities and my limited vision of what Heaven was really all about!  All I was SEEING was from a natural persons perspective, while she had a viewpoint of a grounded Spiritual Warrior who was about to graduate to Glory!  

The Apostle Paul had a much better knowledge of what to expect than most of us.  In 2 Corinthians 12 he writes “I know a man in CHRIST who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, GOD knows.”  Most believe he was referring to himself.  Yet in his first letter to the church at Corinth he recalled what Isaiah 64 said, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor “THE HEART OF MAN IMAGINED”, what GOD has prepared for those who love HIM"!  

Why then do we do so much to delay our exodus from “this world”?  Many of us understand that Heaven is our Home, we are just passing through “this world”.  But others DON’T KNOW and probably don’t want to think about the future beyond their earthly life.  The closer I get to my eternal destination, the more I look forward to "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor “THE HEART OF MAN IMAGINED”!  Physical Death doesn’t “scare” me in the least!  Just like a child who is going to their grandparents home, I am longing to see what is beyond all that “THE HEART OF MAN IMAGINED”!!!