We are God's children, but we don't know what we shall be.

Tuesday, 1/3/12

The readings today do not give us much to talk about, but they give us plenty to think about.

John wrote, “See what love the Father bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.”

If that isn’t something to think about, then I don’t know what is. You can say to yourself, “I am God’s child.” Isn’t that something to savor?

Then, John didn’t just write that you are God’s child. He wrote that all of us are. Look around you. What do you see? You see children whom God loves and dotes on. Shouldn’t you be nice to them?

John goes on to say “WE are God’s children now, but as for what we shall be: it has not yet been revealed.” That sure doesn’t tell us much about heaven.

When I was little, and my dad got paid every other Friday, my mother had enough money to put dinner on the table for all ten of us every evening. At worse it was just bread to sop up gravy. My mother seldom had the nickels for anything extra. The lady next door had only two kids, and she had nickels for things like bananas. When their bananas went brown next door they’d call for Tommy. This is the honest truth. My earliest concept of heaven was having all the fresh bananas I’d want.

I hear ministers at funerals giving all the details about our reuniting with friends in heaven. They talk about what we will do up there. But John wrote, “What we shall be has not yet been revealed,” so I don’t think what the preachers describe has any more accuracy than my banana theory.