| I love rolling up my sleeves and serving God—visiting hospitals, advocating causes, traveling in ministry, relating in marriage, painting at my easel, writing at my computer, and lots more. But I have to be honest: although I love my work, I need rest. In fact, it is rest that invigorates me for work. They are separate and distinct, yet they complement each other.
In heaven work and rest won’t be separate. We will experience both at the same time. Ours will be vigorous work of which we will never grow tired. We will always be active yet at rest, always resting yet active. Psalm 2:8-9 hints at the sort of work we will enjoy: “You will rule [the ends of the earth].” That will be work! We’re not talking about a few acres on the back of the farm—our sphere of authority will be the entire universe. We will have so much to do. To explore, create, rule, discover, manage, possess, and delight in. For all this, we shall be utterly at rest. Amazingly, fatigue will be a thing of the past, since we will “serve him day and night,” as our verse reminds us.
Humans need to work. We need to rest. Heaven is the home of redeemed humans. This means it will be thoroughly human in its structure and activities, including work and rest. Dr. A. A. Hodge suggests, “Heaven’s joys and occupations must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary and active. There must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the expression of all talents, the realization of all ideals…The intellectual curiosity, the aesthetic instincts, the holy affections, the social affinities, the inexhaustible resources of strength and power native to the human soul, must all find in heaven exercise and satisfaction.”
You won’t idle away eons on cloud nine; there will be no passing away the millennia plucking harps by a glassy sea. You will have a job. A happy job for which you are perfectly suited.
Thank you, Lord, that in heaven I will always have something wonderful to do…and I will be happy doing it. |
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