Can we experience heaven on earth? Well, no, if heaven is a place somewhere beyond Earth. But we have already established that Heaven Is Not a Place. If heaven is a state of being, what can stop us from achieving this state of being while we are on Earth?
Quite a few things, really! Unreasonable doubt in life after death and that heaven is real, for one. The difficulty of focusing on the reality of heaven, for another. Trying to achieve it on our own, for yet another. No exposure to proven methods to achieve it, for another. Lack of persistence in applying proven methods, for yet another. To have any chance to achieve this
state of being while we are on Earth, must we not address these things? Let’s look at them one at a time.
Unreasonable doubt in life after death can be addressed using the sound reasoning you will find in the Meaning of Live Video Series. It addresses unreasonable doubt in a creator, its love and its purpose to live in intimacy with us, in what we call heaven, for eternity. You may have never experienced unreasonable doubt about the reality of heaven but you may, like those who have, face the difficulty of prioritizing heaven.
Our understandable fascination with all the worldly gifts our creator has bestowed upon us constantly distracts us from pursuing a heaven we are unable to experience. The challenge of surviving and thriving can easily absorb all our attention and energy. It’s easy to lose track of the most important pursuit of our lives, that of preparing ourselves for achieving the state of being we call heaven. When you can summon up the energy to pursue heaven, you face the next challenge.
You cannot achieve heaven on your own. Jesus taught that “... apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15: 5) But wait. If Jesus knows we need His help, why does He not proactively provide it? God Incarnate will not impose His help. He will help only when you make it clear that you want it by asking for it. God Incarnate is patient and eager for you to respond to His constant outreach. Once you unceasingly ask, the next challenge is to learn to listen.
We need to learn how to turn our prayer into a two-way conversation. God is constantly inviting you into conversation with Him as we established in the post Is Your Creator Awaiting a Response to its Constant Outreach? Because God's outreach is unspoken, it takes the techniques you will find in this latter post to learn how to “hear” it, to respond to it in spoken or silent prayer and to continue the “conversation”. Because it can take many attempts to achieve “conversation”, most experience the final challenge.
We all seek instant gratification. We tend to lose faith in any practice that doesn’t work for us right away. It takes time and perseverance to “hear” anything from God. It takes considerable time before you experience a “conversation” of substance. Even when you overcome the first four challenges we have discussed here, the longer you spend without success, the less faith you may have in your prayers for God’s help, in your ability to apply
this technique and even in the technique itself. The challenge is to hang in there, praying and listening. The experience of discovering, in your mind, the first glimmer of a message from God will help you surmount this challenge and gradually attain the proficiency that will result in the daily, intimate relationship with God that is the state of being we call heaven.
You can do it! You can experience the state of being we call heaven during your lifetime on Earth.
Del H. Smith conducts research into life’s meaning and is the award-winning author of the AMAZON Best Seller, Discovering Life’s Purpose.