The separation between life and death is a hard one for us to understand. You lose someone so dear to you, then somehow life goes on. On the worst day of your life, the rest of the world is still living. They’re celebrating, gathering, traveling, vacationing, laughing and living, completely oblivious to your life altering pain and loss. It seems almost cruel, yet it’s true for every one of us. When my time of loss comes, your life will be going on untouched. That’s simply the way it is.
This devotional is specifically for your moment of loss. For that hard day that awaits us all when life is forever changed here on earth and we’re left without someone we love. My friend, I have the most beautiful message for you today. I will be sharing God’s direct words to guide you in re-imagining the time of separation that awaits us all.
Have you seen the movie Interstellar with Matthew McConaughey? I’m not typically a fan of space movies, but this one is particularly spiritual to me. Watching this movie, it was like an ah-ha moment helping me understand the separation between life and death. Earthly time and heavenly time are radically different!
In the movie, the astronaut played by the ever charming Matthew McConaughey, lands on a distant planet rotating near a black hole. There, every hour on the planet is 7 years on earth. While he is remaining perfectly ageless, his family is growing up and growing old. To him, only 3 hours and 17 minutes had passed, but 23 years had passed on Earth. His son had aged to be older than him by the time he returned. Time simply passed different in a far away place.
Heaven is a real place, and it is far away with a very different time.
In the hospital room with my Daddy, he held my Mama’s hand and struggled to let go. He didn’t want to go on without her, he wanted to stay. He wanted to stay with all of us. The thought of the separation his death would bring was so painful to him. That’s when I remembered that movie. I explained to him that in Heaven, time passes on a different plane and he will have just gotten the tour of his heavenly mansion, then we will all be there. Yes, we’ll be there in a matter of hours, Daddy. He closed his eyes in peace, knowing that in Heaven’s time, we wouldn’t be separated.
Now, let me share God’s word on this theory of heavenly time.
Peter said in 2 Peter 3:8, “But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends; A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.” Did you know Peter is actually quoting scripture from about 1,000 years before? He knew this truth because of Psalm 90:4, “For you, Lord, a thousand years are as a passing day, as brief as a few night hours.” And this truth carried him through years of imprisonment and even his own death in crucifixion. This time is so minimal when viewed from an eternal perspective.
In Heaven, we will be with God, living on his eternal timeline. My human mind cannot comprehend 1,000 years that pass as quickly as a few hours, but if God’s word says it, then I choose to believe it. I trust it. I hold on to it. Then the separation between life and death is just a minute moment in time and we can continue with an eternal perspective.
Trying to understand it, calculate it or control it will only leave you frustrated. This isn’t for you to control. This is for you to believe. Faith is required here, and it is our faith in what we cannot see, cannot understand and cannot control that pleases God. The Lord says in Isaiah 56: 8-9, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” This is where faith comes in.