H is for Heaven

Revelation 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

I have always enjoyed discussing heaven with Asher.  I love to see him excited about heaven and am quite humored by his angst when he asks about his toys, his bed, his dog, his bunny, his video games, and you can imagine that list goes on and on.  Of course, it is very hard to convince a 5 year old that heaven will be so amazing and wonderful that he would never miss anything he has here on earth.

To begin our discussion on heaven, I read from Revelation 21-22 to Asher being careful to draw his attention to exciting and interesting points.  Afterward, I asked him to draw me a picture of heaven and the picture above is his vision of heaven.

I asked him to explain it to me and I will do my best to relay his description:  The red line on the bottom is the ground, the yellow line is a golden street.  The red wavy line is a city and above that is the lake of fire.  The pink dots are "bad people" who are going to be in the lake of fire and above that in yellow is the "new city" and all the wavy lines are gates.  The figure in the middle is a frog (don't know where that came from) and the other black figure is a butterfly.

This told me a lot about what things stood out to him and what things he has a clear understanding of.  The most important thing I think we can get out of teaching our kids about heaven is that they are rightfully excited and my son is yet he has a healthy respect for death and losing somebody from our presence here on earth.  He also has a deep sadness for people who will spend eternity in hell.

Revelation 21:8 was alarming to him but I'm glad he asked about it.  When he gathered that liars would go to hell, he was concerned that he would go to hell if (or when) he lies.  I explained that people who don't know Jesus have no sadness for breaking God's laws and they are not forgiven for their sins and will go to hell.  I explained that if he loves Jesus and accepts God's gift of salvation, he is forgiven for all of his sins even lies and will go to heaven.  I concluded that if he loves God, he will try not to lie because he wants to do things that are pleasing to God.