Now there's a topic! You would be surprised how many people either agree or disagree with this theory, but here goes my theory about why I think there will be cats in heaven (and please notice I did not say my specific pets will be there, I hope so, but I have nothing Biblical to support that wish).
So, I'll start out by quoting Genesis 1: 24-31. A long passage, but it all goes together to make the point I am shooting for.
24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds; livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
First off, notice that in verse 29 that God gives "everything that has breath of life in it" green plant for food. So this means ALL the animals, INCLUDING man and woman, were initially vegetarians, they ate only green plants, fruits, etc. Not that I am advocating vegetarianism, but I want to point this out as some people use the argument that there won't be animals in heaven because they eat meat. They only started eating meat, AFTER the fall of man and when sin entered the world and the world was no longer perfect as God created it.
So then, let me point out that animals were created in God's perfect world, the world where in verse 31 "God saw all that he had made, and it was VERY (my emphasis) good." So animals were very good. They were not carnivorous. In Genesis 2:19 God brought all the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. No man eating lions there.
So this is why I think there will be animals in heaven. If God created them for his perfect world the first time, why would they not be a part of heaven? If man is going to be in heaven, and we are a fallen race that had to be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, why can we not expect to see animals there? The Bible says after the end times Lion will lay down with the Lamb in heaven. Whether this is a literal reference or figurative, I'll go for literal as I feel that the Bible is to be taken literally whenever possible. I think it clearly denotes when it starts referring to something figuratively. I'll endeavor to look up the specific reference for the Lion and the Lamb. I guess if I were to postulate, I would say that when Jesus returns and begins his millennial reign here on the new earth, I think the new earth will be what God originally intended this earth to be. Animals, plants and all. My opinion on this, I don't have any specific verse to support this. If it happens that way, great, if not, whatever God has in mind is fine with me!
So, I hope I have a kitty in heaven to give me as much joy and comfort as the ones God has blessed me with here. Of course then, I won't be focused on that I am sure. But I still think there will be animals!
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
NOW THAT WE'RE PERSONAL AGAIN
Now that all the craft stuff is over at conquestkeepsakes.blogspot.com, I guess I need to think of something else to talk about, get personal again. You know I work on a hanky rating system. Just thought I would warn you.
In life you have so many choices, it's mind-boggling. I'm watching my oldest nephew go through college and I can't help but think of all the things he has ahead of him, all the choices, some right, some wrong, some neither. There are some choices that take you in different directions and me, as a controller type, I want to know where that is before I go. Sad to say, we don't get that privilege. Only God knows that. So how do you know what to do? I'm in my mid-40's and I'm still trying to figure that out, because I'm still having to make those same blasted choices! Do I do this or that? What does God want me to do, what does the hubby want, what do I want? My problem is, I don't really know the answer to any of those questions right now. Do I even have to choose at this juncture? I would like to have an email from God. The burning bush thing might bring out the fire department, and the handwriting on the wall didn't have the best message when it was said and done. A dream would be OK. Most of those worked out well.
I know I have Lupus for a reason, but it sure seems to want to poke it's head out at the wrong times. Or is it the right times? See what I mean? I'm a firm believer in all things happen for a reason and that God really, truly does have a plan. If I had a copy of it, I must have lost it somewhere in one of my super-secret hiding places. I have lots of those. Some day I am going to hit the jackpot and find all those things! Not sure why I would hide the plan though...
So, I guess the best we can do is to pray, and then step out in faith. If it's the wrong path, God will shut the door and open a new one. I sometimes have problems with that. I really like some doors that God wants to close. I'm pretty stubborn and I bet you He knows that about me. So, He has to break out the big stuff every once in a while to get my attention. You know, the bright light on the road to Damascus stuff. Here's hoping I'm paying better attention because the Casa De Cox was not on my list of vacation destinations last summer. Nice people but the accommodations were a bit sparse. Drugs were good, food, BAD.
Letting go is hard. Change is hard. Getting use to a disability is hard. Losing friends is really hard, but making new ones is an indescribable joy! Especially this late in life. You need all the friends you can get. Hopefully with some of the same ailments you have so there is plenty of inappropriate, "too much information" chatter over the speakerphone.
I want to do all the things I used to do as I think I would be more useful to the Lord, but maybe He thinks I am just as useful this way. I don't always feel very useful, but it's not about a feeling, it's about a doing. Someone told me once, "You don't feel yourself into doing, you do yourself into feeling." He's opening a door and sometimes I am too dense to see that the door is meant for me to take. Or, I don't want to take it, because I don't know what is on the other side. Now there's another personality trait I bet you He knows I have. He's got a big boot, too.
I LIKE knowing things. The unknown scares the liver out of me (didn't need that organ anyway—Lupus will eventually want it, so might as well get rid of it on my schedule and not his). Since I was never coordinated enough to be good at sports, or gifted enough to be good at music or arts, I didn't have the looks, so pretty much all that's left is smarts. So smarts it was, or is, sorta. I'm finally getting tired of the "smart" thing. I'm ready to be dumb. My drugs are making me dumb. Half the time I can't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, if I even ate lunch. Very questionable. So, even if I'm not as smart as I once was, I still love to learn new things. God knows that about me too. He also knows that regardless of whether I am smart or dumb, coordinated or uncoordinated, beautiful or homely, stubborn or malleable, He made me this way from the beginning and He knew what I would be and what it would take to keep me looking up to Him. And if I haven't said it, thank you Lord for Godly parents and grandparents. I saw a quote from T. L. Cuyler, "Never despair of a child. The one you were the most for at the mercy seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys." I know my Mom spent a lot of time at the mercy seat over me. I know God heard her prayers, but I don't know if I bring her the sweetest joys now, but I hope so.
Anyway, I know He knows EVERYTHING about me. Big WOW there, can I get an AMEN?! Psalm 139. One of my MOST favorite chapters in the Old Testament. For those of you who think abortion is OK, that unborn babies are just blobs of tissue, and that you have the right to terminate a life that only God can breathe in, in any circumstance, you need to read this (I can hear that can of worms popping open):
Starting with verse 13 and ending with verse 15 (NIV): "For you created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mother's womb, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
There are so many other verses in the Bible where God says He knows the number of hairs on our heads, right NOW, and tomorrow too, and that He is waiting for opportunities to bless us when we are obedient to Him and His Word. Yet another thing that is hard for me. Being obedient. Boy, that's why He needs the big hammer sometimes. And I'm glad He does!
So I've decided that the drugs can heave out the old, unimportant, "I don't need to know that anymore" stuff to make room for the new stuff God is trying to teach me. I love to read and learn, I love to watch others and learn (except TV, we all KNOW that's not real, right? Who does House think he is anyway...) and then, if I don't put all the new knowledge in my super-secret hiding place, I might be able to share that with others, and also share some of the "smarts" I still have that count, the God-given smarts. Maybe that's what the Lord has in mind. Learn something new and share it in perspective with what you already know. Creatively share who He is in all that I do, even if it is just making a paper craft. Love your imperfections, use them for His glory, and move on (or "get over it" as my SWEET hubby likes to say). Learn to deal, prayerfully meditate, incorporate, create and give and love the process as much as the outcome.
Whew! A lot to think about. Every day is a new day and a new opportunity for me to sleep in. Ha. OK, do something useful. Like praying and not worrying about my choices, but accepting His choices, and not having to wait to hear "You've got God" when I log into my email. OK, I don't have AOL. Who needs AOL when you have a Mac? I'm pretty sure God has a MacBook, both OS's on one machine, no tower of Babel for Him! Just like I think there will be cats in heaven, but that is another discussion for another day.
In life you have so many choices, it's mind-boggling. I'm watching my oldest nephew go through college and I can't help but think of all the things he has ahead of him, all the choices, some right, some wrong, some neither. There are some choices that take you in different directions and me, as a controller type, I want to know where that is before I go. Sad to say, we don't get that privilege. Only God knows that. So how do you know what to do? I'm in my mid-40's and I'm still trying to figure that out, because I'm still having to make those same blasted choices! Do I do this or that? What does God want me to do, what does the hubby want, what do I want? My problem is, I don't really know the answer to any of those questions right now. Do I even have to choose at this juncture? I would like to have an email from God. The burning bush thing might bring out the fire department, and the handwriting on the wall didn't have the best message when it was said and done. A dream would be OK. Most of those worked out well.
I know I have Lupus for a reason, but it sure seems to want to poke it's head out at the wrong times. Or is it the right times? See what I mean? I'm a firm believer in all things happen for a reason and that God really, truly does have a plan. If I had a copy of it, I must have lost it somewhere in one of my super-secret hiding places. I have lots of those. Some day I am going to hit the jackpot and find all those things! Not sure why I would hide the plan though...
So, I guess the best we can do is to pray, and then step out in faith. If it's the wrong path, God will shut the door and open a new one. I sometimes have problems with that. I really like some doors that God wants to close. I'm pretty stubborn and I bet you He knows that about me. So, He has to break out the big stuff every once in a while to get my attention. You know, the bright light on the road to Damascus stuff. Here's hoping I'm paying better attention because the Casa De Cox was not on my list of vacation destinations last summer. Nice people but the accommodations were a bit sparse. Drugs were good, food, BAD.
Letting go is hard. Change is hard. Getting use to a disability is hard. Losing friends is really hard, but making new ones is an indescribable joy! Especially this late in life. You need all the friends you can get. Hopefully with some of the same ailments you have so there is plenty of inappropriate, "too much information" chatter over the speakerphone.
I want to do all the things I used to do as I think I would be more useful to the Lord, but maybe He thinks I am just as useful this way. I don't always feel very useful, but it's not about a feeling, it's about a doing. Someone told me once, "You don't feel yourself into doing, you do yourself into feeling." He's opening a door and sometimes I am too dense to see that the door is meant for me to take. Or, I don't want to take it, because I don't know what is on the other side. Now there's another personality trait I bet you He knows I have. He's got a big boot, too.
I LIKE knowing things. The unknown scares the liver out of me (didn't need that organ anyway—Lupus will eventually want it, so might as well get rid of it on my schedule and not his). Since I was never coordinated enough to be good at sports, or gifted enough to be good at music or arts, I didn't have the looks, so pretty much all that's left is smarts. So smarts it was, or is, sorta. I'm finally getting tired of the "smart" thing. I'm ready to be dumb. My drugs are making me dumb. Half the time I can't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, if I even ate lunch. Very questionable. So, even if I'm not as smart as I once was, I still love to learn new things. God knows that about me too. He also knows that regardless of whether I am smart or dumb, coordinated or uncoordinated, beautiful or homely, stubborn or malleable, He made me this way from the beginning and He knew what I would be and what it would take to keep me looking up to Him. And if I haven't said it, thank you Lord for Godly parents and grandparents. I saw a quote from T. L. Cuyler, "Never despair of a child. The one you were the most for at the mercy seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys." I know my Mom spent a lot of time at the mercy seat over me. I know God heard her prayers, but I don't know if I bring her the sweetest joys now, but I hope so.
Anyway, I know He knows EVERYTHING about me. Big WOW there, can I get an AMEN?! Psalm 139. One of my MOST favorite chapters in the Old Testament. For those of you who think abortion is OK, that unborn babies are just blobs of tissue, and that you have the right to terminate a life that only God can breathe in, in any circumstance, you need to read this (I can hear that can of worms popping open):
Starting with verse 13 and ending with verse 15 (NIV): "For you created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mother's womb, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
There are so many other verses in the Bible where God says He knows the number of hairs on our heads, right NOW, and tomorrow too, and that He is waiting for opportunities to bless us when we are obedient to Him and His Word. Yet another thing that is hard for me. Being obedient. Boy, that's why He needs the big hammer sometimes. And I'm glad He does!
So I've decided that the drugs can heave out the old, unimportant, "I don't need to know that anymore" stuff to make room for the new stuff God is trying to teach me. I love to read and learn, I love to watch others and learn (except TV, we all KNOW that's not real, right? Who does House think he is anyway...) and then, if I don't put all the new knowledge in my super-secret hiding place, I might be able to share that with others, and also share some of the "smarts" I still have that count, the God-given smarts. Maybe that's what the Lord has in mind. Learn something new and share it in perspective with what you already know. Creatively share who He is in all that I do, even if it is just making a paper craft. Love your imperfections, use them for His glory, and move on (or "get over it" as my SWEET hubby likes to say). Learn to deal, prayerfully meditate, incorporate, create and give and love the process as much as the outcome.
Whew! A lot to think about. Every day is a new day and a new opportunity for me to sleep in. Ha. OK, do something useful. Like praying and not worrying about my choices, but accepting His choices, and not having to wait to hear "You've got God" when I log into my email. OK, I don't have AOL. Who needs AOL when you have a Mac? I'm pretty sure God has a MacBook, both OS's on one machine, no tower of Babel for Him! Just like I think there will be cats in heaven, but that is another discussion for another day.
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