In Earth As It Is In Heaven

¹“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10). It helps us to imagine that earth and heaven are two separate things. Some of us like to pretend that heaven is largely theoretical. If it exists at all, it’s so far above and removed from our small and insignificant concerns that nothing we do could ever really have any effect on heaven. And then again, some of us treat our lives here on Earth as the somewhat unpleasant vegetables that we have to hold our nose and rush through so we can get to heaven already and receive our just desserts. In either case, we find it hard to fully appreciate the interconnectedness of heaven and earth. I mean, sure, we may believe in a Great and Final Judgment and so we busy ourselves in trying to avoid sin and do plenty of good deeds, but there is still this disconnect. It’s like there’s some cosmic scoreboard and it really doesn’t matter what we do or how we do it so long as it all adds up to a high enough score for us to get into heaven. But we can’t just decouple heaven and earth and expect to live the kind of life that our Heavenly Father hoped we would enjoy. In the wide scope of eternity, our time on Earth may be no more than a blip, but it’s neither a detour nor a holding pattern where we are stuck waiting to get back to our real life. What we do on Earth sends ripples through eternity. Our choices and actions have as real an effect on Heaven as they do on Earth. And if we didn’t spend so much of our time being foolish or stubborn, then we would allow Heaven to have just as big of an effect on our lives here on Earth. How different might our choices be if we fully appreciated that their effects have the potential to outlast not just our mortal lives but the whole earth and a thousand others like it? Heaven and Eternity are not distant or remote. We are a part of eternity right now. Heaven is all around us right now. We have always been and will forever continue to be and especially are at this very moment eternal beings. To pray that God’s will be done in earth, as it is in heaven is not a hopeful wish but an accurate description of reality. I hope we will all learn to more fully exist in heaven and in earth at the same time.