Thing #19

Thing 19 was to look at an award page of Web 2.0 tools, http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0 This one was frightfully fascinating!  Most of the pages had intriguing links.

From Squidoo, I went to a page, a “lens” with everything you could possibly ever want to know about Michelangelo’s David.

Ning had the successor to Brotherhood2.0, the Nerdfighter site.

There was a social networking site for young people called Imbee.com.

There are sites that do feed management, photos, travel… so much.  It looks like a good place to go the next time I want to find something cool on the web.

Earthly Activities

Today I heard an old argument that I disagree with.  Here’s how it goes:

Why doesn’t God just take us to heaven after we accept Christ?

— The only thing we can do on earth that we can’t do in heaven better is to bring other people to Christ.

— Therefore, we should devote our time on earth to bringing other people to Christ.

I disagree with this.  It seems to me, there are plenty of things we can do on earth that we can’t do in heaven.  Over the years, I came up with two biggies:

1.  Glorify God in suffering.

2.  Bear children.

Today, thinking about it again, I came up with several more, though I think maybe a lot of them could be classified under “Glorify God in suffering.”  Here are some:

— Withstand temptation.

— Forgive others who are sinning against us.

— Experience God’s forgiveness or someone else’s forgiveness as we are sinning.

— Exercise faith.

— Have hope.  (Three things remain:  faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.  You don’t need faith when you can see the result.  You don’t need hope when you have the object of your hope.)

— Learn patience.

I guess now I’m getting into a whole area of personal growth.  We grow through our experiences in a fallen world.

I was going to add things like “Writing a book.” to the list of things we can do on earth that we can’t do in heaven, but that’s not clear at all–I think we can still exercise Creativity in heaven.  Though will we still be able to write those heart-rending stories that touch people deeply?  Or would we be able to if we hadn’t experienced pain on earth?

I think the whole argument minimizes the many parts of my life that are not spent bringing others to Christ.  Why didn’t God just destroy the world when Adam sinned and start over?

I think there is value to be found in this life.  That I can glorify God simply by enjoying the gifts He has given me — reading a good book, enjoying a sunset, smiling at a baby.  I also think that much of God’s plan for me — the reasons he made me the person I am and put me on this earth — has nothing to do with spiritual things, necessarily.  I believe that I am being the person He made me to be when I conduct a Storytime and connect with one small child.  Or when I write something that introduces someone to a good book. 

My friend Kathe is glorifying God and fulfilling her own calling and being the person God made her to be when she grooms a dog with love in her heart.  It’s a beautiful thing to see, but I believe she’s serving God even when she does this and no other human sees her do it.

All this has gotten pretty far afield from the original argument.  What do you think?  What things can you do on earth that you can’t do better in heaven?  And why do you think God put us on earth and why does He leave us on earth?