Thought for the week - Paradise!

What thoughts come to mind when you see the word paradise?

For some it is a lovely beach with sunshine and warm sand. Maybe paradise is the view from the top of a mountain. For me, it would be a big shop building with all sorts of tools and projects with time to work on them all. We all have our own ideas of what makes paradise in our lives.

Spring comes in many forms. I just know that I now laugh at the idea of April showers bringing May flowers. Spring is that time of perfect temps, not too hot and not too cool, cool nights and warmish days. Enough rain to green things up but not so much that we flood. We will have our own version of what makes a perfect spring. Mostly we are just glad to see the trees budding and the dead brown turning green.

I know as I talk to people that they each have their own idea of what would be their perfect life. Sadly, we usually find that we never find the perfect paradise in the perfect place. There are places we like to visit and then we come home.

Then there is the news. I can move on to the immigration issues that are involving countries all around the world, the situation across so much of the Middle East. The unrest across so many places of sub-Saharan Africa. There is unrest in the far East and the international chaos is seemingly never ending in topic after topic and region after region. We could discuss the situations on university campuses across the USA. The political elections, national to local, pitting neighbor against neighbor. Homelessness and drug abuse, mental health crisis in major cities and small communities around the world. The news I am seeing is showing that none of the chaos is localized, but rather seems worldwide across all nationalities and economic strata.

In Hebrews it speaks of the giants of faith and says of Abraham: “for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Hebrews 11:10) The paradise that Abraham was looking for was the eternal home we call Heaven. The way was by faith.

I leave us with this: “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away...” (Revelation 21:1) I live in anticipation of that final heavenly paradise. The challenge is how we find our way to the Paradise that God offers. It won’t come from my religion or yours, it only comes in relationship with Christ as outlined in the scripture. Jesus stated, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

My prayer is that you find your way to Jesus and find Him sufficient for your life and eternity. Confession of Christ as redeemer is the only way to be forgiven and find true paradise.