Article February 15, 1988 Issue

Waste places and heaven

The Christian Science Monitor

"Ain't no wastebaskets in heaven." It was mainly the down-home sound that caught my ear. But I remembered the simple wisdom when I saw so many struggling to believe they could have productive futures—the permanently laid off, the prematurely retired, even the long homeless. Must some of us fear that our lives are wasting away in spite of our sincere efforts?

The Christian answer is no. There couldn't be places in heaven, in God's kingdom, where there are useless or unneeded individuals.

The difficulty, we feel, is right here and now. Too often men and women find hope worn down and their lives on hold. But a God who inhabits a perfect realm somewhere else wouldn't be the all-inclusive Love of which the Bible speaks. Neither can His children truly be inhabitants of a bleak world in which even earnest striving is fruitless. God's kingdom is omnipresent, and our actual being is never outside His perfect presence. Yes, the very opposite sometimes seems to be true, but a perception of the spiritual reality of our being can open the way to progress. Each one of us, now, has an indispensable purpose in God's kingdom.

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