Eternity is Too Short

     Due to an overzealous security program on my new laptop--I call this one Dimples--I have been unable to connect with my own blog.  No doubt some reader was praying for respite.  This was followed by an underzealous security program that let moving banner ads of men's biceps cover the top of my blog. Neither the strict nor the kinder, gentler security program could prevent pop ups for, ironically, Norton Internet Security. Could it be that ads that cling to the screen like a three headed leech are not good for business?  Buying it would be like inviting a stalker to dinner.  But all this is just the preamble to my main amble and title to this piece--Eternity is Too short.
     Eternity is too short to spend even the first hundred years looking for familiar hymnbooks, or the King James Bible, or the piano/organ only section. The familiar comforts of our own brand of Christianity should be left behind with the books and the buildings and our bodies. There is nothing wrong with having a comfort zone, but while it comforts, it also confines. One of the glories of heaven will be unity with believers of all eras, ages, nations and denominations. We will speak, sing and pray in ways we cannot comprehend now.  I get a small English-only version of that in Bible Study Fellowship and it makes me hunger for more.
     A visiting missionary once told us about explaining our mansions in heaven at his church in Africa. An older woman spoke up, "It would have to have a tin roof, Pastor." That was the finest home she could imagine.  It is hard to imagine bigger than our comfort zone. When Reed travels for work, we have the opportunity to visit many different churches. I make a conscious effort to lay down the invisible scoreboard where I compare their church to my church and just enjoy the preaching and fellowship. I have not yet been disappointed. God is doing something global, eternal and beautiful and we can, by our own prejudices, make it narrow, divisive and judgmental.  I would like to practice that heavenly perspective now because eternity is just too short.