Joy is the serious business of Heaven.
C. S. Lewis
“Tell me about the kid who won everything tonight.”
Jon-Avery looked at me and we both knew exactly whom I was talking about.
We were driving home from his eighth-grade public school awards assembly. He was still wearing his honor roll medal around his neck, but it didn’t hide the slight slump of his shoulders. I asked the question because I could tell he needed to talk about what just happened.
I looked straight ahead and tried not to notice the slight quiver in his voice as he told me about the popular, highly decorated student who was also the very same person who had bullied one of Jon-Avery’s friends all year long.
“I just don’t understand, Mom. Why would that kid win Student of the Year when he’s been so mean? It’s just not fair,” Jon-Avery said.
It wasn’t the first conversation we’d had about the kid, but it was the first time I put a name with a face. When my son’s name wasn’t called as Student of the Year, I was honestly surprised. Not because he was the best at everything but because he had a heart of gold, and I figured others had noticed too.
I guess you’d have to know my son (and maybe from the previous chapters you feel like you do a little) to understand the kind of kid he is. He isn’t perfect, but he is good. He’s the kind of kid who doesn’t go to a party hosted by a group of popular kids because they are the same ones who bullied his friend. He politely turned them down and instead invited over the boy who’d been excluded.
We don’t give rewards for awards in our house. We definitely acknowledge achievements, but they aren’t a goal. We’ve been saying “Do your best” for as long as I can remember. If your best is a big fat C, it’s okay. Occasionally, it’s my kids who walk across the stage decorated with awards, but more often they are in the middle of the pack.
I got a glimpse into what teachers and award-givers can’t always see: my son had come behind one bent on popularity and achievement and quietly encouraged one left reeling in his wake.
We are raising kids in the age of awards—it’s the trophy generation. Recently I attended an end-of-the-year elementary awards ceremony at which hundreds of names were called out. Every child received an award. I think awarding excellence is great because it encourages more excellence. But it gets tricky when we award everyone for participating so no one will feel left out. What are we encouraging exactly? Show up and you win!
Of course, awards aren’t new. When I was in high school the only award I cherished was the Rhinestone Jesus Napkin Award (which was really a way for my drama club to mock my faith in a funny way. It didn’t embarrass me; I was proud they noticed). It felt more like a reward than an award.
Life isn’t fair. As adults we understand that truth, but it’s hard to watch our kids learn it. It’s not an easy lesson to see some recognized and others overlooked. But doing the right thing is still the right thing, and I reminded my son on that drive home that earthly awards have nothing to do with heavenly rewards. There’s a difference between the two.
I reminded Jon-Avery of our conversation about heaven from the week before. Normally when I think about eternity it’s during a worship service or when I’m completely overwhelmed. And then it’s more of a “take me out of here, Jesus” thought. Spiritual, I know.
“Mom, heaven just doesn’t sound that awesome,” he had said. At least he was honest.
I told him about the time his little sister Emerson cried every time we talked about heaven. It all started out innocently enough. She was about three or four years old, and we were saying bedtime prayers and still doing a memorized version of this childhood prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Angels watch me through the night, until I wake with morning light. Amen.” She was precocious and a master at delay tactics and asked what it meant. I fell for it and began a long theological conversation in which I ended up describing eternity and how we would all live with Jesus.
“But I don’t want to live with Jesus, Mommy. I want to live with you and Daddy,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“Oh, it’s okay, honey. It won’t be now. It’s later. Now let’s go to bed.” I was trying to work my way out of the conversation.
“But how do we get to heaven?” she asked. She clearly wasn’t done.
I knew I couldn’t tell her about death, so I said, “We will meet Jesus in the air. He will be on a white horse,” because that seemed way less confusing. Yeah, right.
Within five minutes she was crying real tears, and I might have accidentally promised her a pony in heaven just like Jesus has. Only she wanted hers to be pink. I let Terrell handle bedtime prayers for weeks after that night.
Jon-Avery and I talked about what we would be doing “up there” for aeons and aeons. We had been listening to the radio, and a song I loved came on. I turned it up and sang off key. He rolled his eyes. When it ended I said, “I can’t wait to sing that song for eternity.” Based on his earlier comment, I think he imagined we would literally be singing the same song for a thousand years, and it left him with more questions than answers.
I assured him heaven wouldn’t be what pop culture indicated. We wouldn’t wear halos and feathered wings, strum harps, float on clouds, and sing all day and all night. At the time, I was in the middle of reading The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn, and I told him some of the things I’d learned about living in eternity with Jesus. I explained that we will work and will love our jobs. We will be filled with joy and eternal pleasure, and we will worship. We will also be rewarded for how we lived on earth. We talked about how everything we do here affects us in the afterlife—the good and bad choices we make.
I had underlined and earmarked pages in the book as a reminder for me, but in that moment I knew that this was something I had to also teach my kids. Alcorn writes:
John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress in an English prison. He said: “Whatever good thing you do for Him, if done according to the Word, is laid up for you as treasure in chests and coffers, to be brought out to be rewarded before both men and angels, to your eternal comfort.”
Is this a biblical concept? Absolutely. Paul spoke about the Philippians’ financial giving and explained, “Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account” (Philippians 4:17). God keeps an account open for us in heaven, and every gift given for His glory is a deposit in that account. Not only God, not only others, but we are the eternal beneficiaries of our giving. (Have you been making regular deposits?)
But isn’t it wrong to be motivated by reward? No, it isn’t. If it were wrong, Christ wouldn’t offer it to us as a motivation. Reward is His idea, not ours.
Our instinct is to give to those who will give us something in return. But Jesus told us to give to “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. . . . Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12–14). If we give to those who can’t reward us, Christ guarantees He will personally reward us in heaven.
Giving is a giant lever positioned on the fulcrum of this world, allowing us to move mountains in the next world. Because we give, eternity will be different—for others and for us.1
I wish I could see how much “giving credit” I’ve got stored—it might just motivate me to do more. But just because I can’t access my heavenly account doesn’t mean it’s not there. I love that Jesus is keeping track of it. One of my favorite passages has always been Matthew 6:19–20: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (NIV). But what does this mean? Randy Alcorn says:
It is by serving God and others that we store up heavenly treasures. Everyone gains. No one loses. . . . He who lays up treasures on earth spends his life backing away from his treasures. To him, death is loss. He who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity; he’s moving daily toward his treasures. To him, death is gain. He who spends his life moving away from his treasures has reason to despair. He who spends his life moving toward his treasures has reason to rejoice.2
I explained this to Jon-Avery. “Son, it’s a completely countercultural way to do math, but it adds up because God is keeping the record. He is taking note of who you are and what you do and how kind you are to people. He is recording it all, and it’s been counted as treasures in heaven. It might not land you Student of the Year here on earth, but it will matter in eternity.” This kind of accounting is hard to explain to our kids, but we can bank on the truth of it.
I wanted to know more about heaven to be better able to answer my kids’ questions and began reading Heaven, also by Randy Alcorn. He says:
Every kingdom work, whether publicly performed or privately endeavored, partakes of the kingdom’s imperishable character. Every honest intention, every stumbling word of witness, every resistance of temptation, every motion of repentance, every gesture of concern, every routine engagement, every motion of worship, every struggle towards obedience, every mumbled prayer, everything, literally, which flows out of our faith-relationship with the Ever-Living One, will find its place in the ever-living heavenly order which will dawn at his coming.3
Isn’t that stunning? So, yes, trying counts!
A new friend got me to think about treasure in a completely new way. Over lunch we talked about faith, the church, and perspective, and she asked, “If you could tell the church anything, what would it be?”
Without having to think, I knew my answer. “I would tell the church that we can continue to compete with the world, constantly trying to better our lifestyles with bigger and better cars, houses, and so on, or we can change lives.”
Our conversation made me think about something I’d read in the book of James. I pulled out my Bible and read the following:
Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment.
For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The wages you held back cry out against you. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you. (James 5:1–6 NLT)
I studied it and reread it several times, and these words from An Exposition of the Bible gave me much to think about:
They imagined themselves to be rich; they were really most poor and most miserable. So sure is the doom that is coming upon them, that in prophetical style St. James begins to speak of it as already here; like a seer, he has it all before his eyes. “Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted.” We have here three kinds of possessions indicated. First, stores of various kinds of goods. These are “corrupted”; they have become rotten and worthless. Secondly, rich garments, which in the East are often a very considerable portion of a wealthy man’s possessions. They have been stored up so jealously and selfishly that insects have preyed upon them and ruined them. And thirdly, precious metals. These have become tarnished and rusted, through not having been put to any rational use. Everywhere their avarice has been not only sin, but folly. It has failed of its sinful object. The unrighteous hoarding has tended not to wealth, but to ruin. And thus the rust of their treasures becomes “a testimony against them.” In the ruin of their property their own ruin is portrayed; and just as corruption, and the moths, and the rust consume their goods, so shall the fire of God’s judgment consume the owners and abusers of them. They have reserved all this store for their selfish enjoyment, but God has reserved them for His righteous anger.4
I immediately thought of Matthew 6:19–20, where we are urged to store up treasures in heaven and not on earth to prevent these same calamities. In other words, not only should we store up treasures in heaven by how we serve others and give to people in need—basically by how we live—but also if we choose to store our treasures on earth they will be the only reward we get.
We were created for heaven. We are eternal beings; this world will never truly satisfy us. We try too hard to quench the hunger for more with the things of this world, but the more we get the emptier we feel. I know because that’s how I spent many years of my life. Once I began storing my treasures in heaven instead of spending them on myself, I started longing for heaven more. I finally understood Colossians 3:1–2, which commands: “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (NIV). We are supposed to long for heaven.
I truly believe these words from Randy Alcorn:
Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy us.5
I think this is why we have pain and suffering here on earth. It makes us long for the place where neither of those will exist. We all bear our own kind of hardships in this life. Terrell and I have chosen to expose our kids to the pain and suffering of the world, not to harm them but to help them. The last thing we want to do is raise kids who can see only their own suffering. When we show them the pain of others, we not only give them perspective but also teach them compassion. And we raise kids who change the world.
Think about it. It’s when we are in pain that we discover God is the only true source of our contentment. It’s up to us as parents to redirect and remind our children that this world—with all its must-haves—will never satisfy. Abigail Van Buren, better known as “Dear Abby,” gave this practical advice to parents: “If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money.”6
In an article on heaven in Thriving Family from Focus on the Family, Randy Alcorn suggests we teach our kids these five truths about heaven:
As I drove Jon-Avery through Chick-fil-A for a sweet tea (my kind of reward) on the way home from his awards ceremony, I reminded him of our earlier conversation about heaven. “What you’re doing now, how you’re living and loving and leading, the way you seek out the kid left out and left behind—these are worth a reward. The medal kind given out tonight will rust and end up in a box in the attic, but the kind you’re storing up in heaven—this kind will last forever.”
I also reminded him that just because our culture doesn’t always value the good guys who are quietly making the right decisions, rooting for the underdog, loving and serving the least of these, that doesn’t mean these acts are not being recorded.
Someone is taking account. I gave him a little nudge and said, “One day, instead of gold around our neck it will be under our feet.” He rolled his eyes, but he was also sitting up straighter.
I think my son was beginning to understand the truth behind why we serve others, why we love and give away our time, our money, our friendship—what we have:
Our giving is a reflexive response to the grace of God in our lives. It doesn’t come out of our altruism or philanthropy—it comes out of the transforming work of Christ in us. This grace is the action; our giving is the reaction. We give because He first gave to us. The greatest passage on giving in all Scripture ends not with “Congratulations for your generosity,” but “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15). We give because we have received, and when we do we store up treasures in Heaven that we will enjoy for eternity.8