pondering heaven and the nature of the Christian life

This was a story that I made up to tell the kids in Scripture today about what life is like as a Christian, both in this age and the age to come.  Especially since I'm teaching young kids I decided to do this via a story.  As I was thinking about this I realised that a good allegory about this has already been written; namely, Pilgrim's Progress.  But that is a little long to read out to the class.

It was done in a hurry, but hopefully it's not too heretical :-)

~~~~~

There was a girl named Katie.  When Katie was 8 she decided to ask Jesus to forgive her for her sins.   Katie told her friends about Jesus.  She said, “Jesus loves you.  He died to forgive your sins.”  Some her friends said to her, “why do you follow Jesus?  That’s just silly.  It’s a made up story.  You must be an idiot for believing it.  Katie wanted to get really mad at them, but then she remembered that Jesus said, “If you love me, other people are going to hate you and be mean to you.  Don’t worry, they just do that because they hate me.”  So Katie calmed down.  Then she prayed, “Jesus please make them love you and not hate you anymore.”

When Katie grew up she wanted to be a missionary tell people overseas about Jesus.  But one day Katie got sick.  She was so tired she could hardly get out of bed.  Her mum came into her room and said, “Come on Katie.  It’s time to get up.”  “Mum I don’t feel so good”, Katie said, “I’m so so tired.  Can I stay in bed today?”  “OK” her mum said, “you can stay in bed today”.  So Katie stayed in bed and rested.  Before she went to sleep she said, “Jesus I know you’re powerful and you love me, so can you please make me all better by tomorrow.”

So Katie went to sleep.  When she woke up in the morning she was still tired.  Her mum came into her room and said, “Come on Katie.  It’s time to get up.”  But Katie said, “I’m still really tired Mum.”  So her mum said, “I’m going to take you to the doctor.”  Katie had to go see lots of doctors.  Every day she prayed, “Jesus I know you’re powerful and you love me, so can you please make me all better by tomorrow.” 

Eventually one of the doctors said, “Katie you are very sick.  You have leukaemia.”  Every day she kept praying, “Jesus I know you’re powerful and you love me, so can you please make me all better by tomorrow.”  Then one day Katie died. 

The very next thing she knew, she was in a bright and shiny place.  It was very beautiful.  There was a big area of grass.  It looked so beautiful, so she took off her shoes, and went running down the hill.  The grass was so beautiful and soft; there weren’t any prickles in it at all.

When she got down to the bottom of the hill, she started to hear some noise.  So she went to investigate.  She went a bit further, and the noise got louder, then she came to a big high fence.  The noise was coming from the inside.  She said to herself, “It sounds like everyone was having a great time, there’s all this laughter.  Ooh I hope I can go in!” 

So she walked along the fence and found a gate.  On the gate there was a sign.  It had big writing on it “ONLY FRIENDS ALLOWED!”.  Standing next to the gate was a man.  He said to Katie, “Are you a friend of my master?”  “I don’t know”, Katie said, “Who is your master?”.  “My master’s name is Jesus”, he said, “are you friends with him?”  “Oh yes!” she said, “we’ve been friends for so long!”  So the man opened the gate and let Katie in. 

When Katie got inside she saw the biggest party ever.  There were lots and lots of people.  They were all laughing and chatting and eating.  There were all sorts of different people there.  There were old people and young people.  There were people from all different countries too, people with white skin, people with black skin, brown skin and yellow skin.  There were lots of people there.  They were sharing the food around with each other.  No-one was yelling or fighting or grumpy.  And Katie thought to herself, “No-one is fighting or being selfish. I’ve never been a place like this before.”

There was a band playing too.  They sang lots of great songs.  They were praising Jesus, saying, “You are amazing and holy.  You have made a whole new family of people.  You have got rid of all the bad things in the world.”  And Katie thought to herself, “These people love Jesus, just like me”.

As she was listening to the band someone came up to her and said, “Here are your new clothes.”  And they handed Katie the most beautiful dress she had ever seen.  She put it on, and it fitted her perfectly.

She twirled around in her new dress, and out of the corner of her eye she spotted someone who was so bright and shiny she could hardly look at him.  She stopped to get a closer look at him.  Then he looked up and saw her too.  Then he smiled and started walking towards her.  Immediately she knew who he was.  And Jesus said to her, “Welcome home Katie.”  Katie smiled and thought to herself, “This is the best place ever.”