If You Want to Change Your Life Now, You’ve Got to Know What Heaven & Forever Will Be Like

In the precious time Colleen Chao has been living with a terminal diagnosis, she’s been pondering questions like: What is heaven like? What happens to me the moment I die? Will I be able to see my loved ones from heaven? How can I practically experience the hope of heaven? Colleen invites us into the hope that is sustaining her as she walks through the valley of the shadow of death: the hope of a Home that exceeds our wildest dreams and expectations. It’s a joy to welcome Colleen to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Colleen Chao

No matter where I’ve lived or how briefly I’ve lived there, home has always been where my people are.

As a single woman, I was happiest when my front door swung open to students, colleagues, friends, and family—filling even the smallest spaces with giant joy.

Since becoming a wife and mom, I’ve not only wanted to create a place of love and belonging for my husband and son, but I’ve also looked at every potential new apartment and house with one burning question: Can we host people here? 

I guess that’s why, when Jesus tells His disciples, “I am going away to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2), I can almost hear the warmth in His voice and see the excitement in His eyes. It’s the same excitement I sense in verses like this one:

What no eye has seen, 

no ear has heard,

and no human heart has conceived—

God has prepared these things for those who love him. (1 Cor. 2:9) 

“My journey through decades of hardship—including extended singleness, cyclical depression, chronic illness, and terminal cancer—has proven to me that God is exactly who He says He is.“

Have you ever known someone whose home is a special place of belonging for you?

They seem to have a sixth sense for creating a space where you feel loved in every detail: there’s a spread of your favorite foods and drinks; a cozy blanket waiting for you; a basket of toiletries if you spend the night. They seem to instinctively know whether you need to sit quietly and rest, or pour your heart out, or laugh your head off.

But as humans, our attempts at creating a place of belonging have limitations.

In striking contrast, God knows no limitations nor constraints—He deals in the infinite and exhaustless. No wonder our five senses can’t begin to process what He’s preparing for us.

But if we know Him, we know that He will do it well, for he knows all about us. He knows what will give us the most happiness. . . . He loves us, too, so well that, as the preparing is left to him, I know that he will prepare us nothing second-rate, nothing that could possibly be excelled. We shall have the best of the best, and much of it; we shall have all that even his great heart can give us. Nothing will be stinted.1

“The God who is preparing a place for me and for you and for all His children is the God who created us, rescued us, and continues to pour out His goodness and love on us. “

My journey through decades of hardship—including extended singleness, cyclical depression, chronic illness, and terminal cancer—has proven to me that God is exactly who He says He is.

“He is my faithful love” (Ps. 144:2), and He has never failed me.

He’s never shortchanged me; He’s always outgiven me.

So I can live in the mystery and the unknown, even when it’s painful or scary. I don’t need all the details about Home ahead of time, because what I do know is enough: The God who is preparing a place for me and for you and for all His children is the God who created us, rescued us, and continues to pour out His goodness and love on us. 

The One who spoke galaxies into being, who breathed out stars like Mu Cephei (the size of 2.7 quadrillion Earths) and deep-sea mysteries like the bioluminescent vampire squid—who dreamed up 11,000 bird species, sculpted snowflakes, and crafted subatomic particles—is the One who has saved His best work for last. 

We haven’t seen anything yet . . .  

“Home is where we finally, fully, and forever belong. Where we are perfectly known and loved, safe and satisfied.“

But Jesus gives us glimpses of what He’s preparing. We know that Home will be vast and prosperous (Is. 9:7), safe and peaceful (Is. 32:18), a place of endless joy and pleasure (Ps. 16:11), where people from every tribe and tongue and nation will enjoy and serve and worship God forever (Rev. 7:9–12; Ps. 145:1–2).

There will be no more sin or evil, grief or death, pain or tears (Rev. 21:3–4, 27; 22:3). We will be perfectly loved and will love perfectly in return. We will see God face to face, and we will be like Him (1 John 3:2).

Home is where we finally, fully, and forever belong. Where we are perfectly known and loved, safe and satisfied. 

We foreshadow this future—this ultimate belonging—when we laugh late into the night with our best friend, dance with a child, confide in a trusted roommate, rest quietly with our spouse, share a favorite meal with our people, or sing our hearts out with our church family. 

But these are just hints of Home, sneak peeks into the place of perfect belonging where the presence of Jesus is so excessively good, we’ll need resurrected bodies to handle it all. In the meantime, we can lean all our hope into the promise that God has given us:

For I will create new heavens and a new earth;

the past events will not be remembered or come to mind.

Then be glad and rejoice forever

in what I am creating;

for I will create Jerusalem to be a joy

and its people to be a delight.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem

and be glad in my people.

The sound of weeping and crying

will no longer be heard in her. (Is. 65:17–19)

Lord my God, you have done many things—

your wondrous works and your plans for us;

none can compare with you.

If I were to report and speak of them,

they are more than can be told. (Ps. 40:5)

1. C. H. Spurgeon, No Tears in Heaven (Glasgow: Christian Focus Publications, 2014), 6–9.

With beautiful prose, soul-sustaining Scriptures, and the testimonies of faithful saints, Colleen Chao shows us in the pages of her newest book, On Our Way Home: Reflections on heaven in the face of death, how our deepest desires—for beauty, wonder, peace, healing, happiness, power, worship, and belonging—are permanently (and increasingly!) fulfilled when we get Home.  

What a beautiful, deeply meaningful book — that makes your every day now deeply meaningful.

You can follow more of Colleen’s journey at www.colleenchao.com or on Instagram @colleen.chao.

{Our humble thanks to Moody Publishers for their partnership in today’s devotional.}