“Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care or nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world– all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God” (N.T. Wright).

At the end of my life, what will be my legacy? What will I have produced that lasts? Will it be my 401K? Probably not at this rate. Will it be books I have written or lectures I have given? Not yet (at least not in the non-dream world). Will it be risks taken, adventures had, boundaries crossed? Maybe and maybe not. What will it be?

I’d like to think it will be a legacy of love. Not a legacy of how much Greg so loved the world, but how God so loved the world and made Greg a vessel to pour that love into until it spilled over in joy and great gladness to the world around him.

It will be cups of cold water given out of compassion. It will be acts of kindness done to the least of these who never were able to repay me in my lifetime. It will be those moments when I was not caught up in my own drama and gave selflessly of myself.

Basically, it will be every time I died. Whether it was to my rights or to my plans or to my goals or to my posessions, every death I die will hopefully mean life for someone else. And ultimately real eternal life for me. Not that I’m earning it, but that I am able to experience it more fully as I die to my old, mortal way of living to die.

I think the best way to describe my first moments of heaven will be the ones spoken by Jewel the Unicorn in The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis:  “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

I think the feeling I will have will be the one expressed by Aslan, the Christ-figure (think Lion of Judah): “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

Then I will know beyond any shadow of a doubt that no good thing is ever lost, whether it be places, people or possessions we truly and deeply loved. And yes, I think even pets. But the best part will be the presence of a tangible Love. The best part of Heaven is that Jesus will be there.

So, I want everything I do to be an act of love, kindness, and compassion that will leave for me a treasure in Heaven which will neither rust nor fade. That means that I must die, so that Christ can live through me. So right here and now, God, I surrender all of me to You to do with as You see fit. Make my life a legacy of love.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.