“I just screamed. I was so happy. It was just pure elation and just a visceral, emotional reaction to not only being home, but people there coming to us and bringing us out — just unspeakable joy.”  Reid Wiseman, Commander Artemis II

Commander Wiseman, who said he is “not really a religious person,” may have unknowingly provided one of the great insights into what our arrival in Heaven might be like.  People coming to us.  Unspeakable joy.  

I am so in awe of the comments the Artemis II astronauts have made describing spiritual experiences as they hurled through space and went further from earth than any humans have ever gone.  As they witnessed the sun eclipsed by the moon.  As they emerged from the silence and darkness of the back side of their travel around the moon.  These scientists.  These intellectuals.  These learned people from a community that often looks for ways to deny the existence of a higher deity, all commented on the deep spiritual awareness this trip caused.  It seems that the vastness of space caused the reality of an Omnipotent God to be revealed through firsthand experience.

I often have a vision of Jesus standing next to his father, God, rubbing the scars in his hands from those nails driven through them and into the cross, saying “I would do it all again for him (me).”  God responding, “no need, once paid the eternal price.”

I am increasingly aware of my inability to comprehend the eternal, permanent, never-ending, without condition love of the Father.  Equally, my meek human mind seeks to compare God to humans, resulting in significant limitations of my expectation.  It seems Commander Wiseman and all of the Artemis II crew experienced the clarity of God when the fog of earth and sin was removed.  Faith causes me to accept what I cannot see and expect what I cannot understand and accept what I cannot earn.

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  Psalms 16:12 (ESV)

Heaven awaits all of us who seek and accept salvation offered because of the blood of Christ.  So too, Hell awaits those who reject the truth of God and his forgiveness freely offered.  Choose wisely.

“The moment we take our last breath on earth, we take our first in heaven” by Billy Graham