Our Father Who Art in Heaven

Heaven. Is it real? And where can it possibly be?

To say "heaven" is to indicate that there is a place greater than this one, it's to look up. That "Our Father" resides there, well, that's awesome! It also puts my life and preoccupations in perspective.

When Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, he made heaven a friendly place for us. We know Jesus, and he said that he is preparing that place for us. He is good, without caveat or qualification; he's the one who is what we long to be. He has convinced us of his love for us, left his Spirit within us, and gives us a sure promise through his resurrection that all our deepest longings have a home, a fulfillment. It's heaven.

It only exists because of our Father. "I long for your dwelling", says David. Where should the creator of all things dwell? Wherever he wants to I suppose. And where he is, that is heaven. And what is God that he should have a dwelling--or that he should even "dwell"? He is our Father. That is how we know him. Our Father loves; he makes, he lives with, helps, corrects, watches, and provides for his children. Where he is has got to be the place where we are most ourselves, as his children, redeemed from sin, comforted in suffering, doing good things: truly living!

"Our Father in heaven" gives us not only the love of God in which to pray to him, but also a place in which we can live in that love. This family needs a place in which to live out our love, and heaven provides that place. When you pray "Our Father in heaven" you know that he not only is the father that you need, that Jesus gives to you, but that the Father and Son together have a place that is just good. It's a place that is good for the trinitarian relationship to abound, but now it is a place that is being prepared by Jesus for our divine familial relationship to also take root, grow, and abound to eternity. He's the first human to enter that space, so we can be confident that it is a space now made just right for us.

When I pray, I might doubt that my desires are right. But because there is a heaven, inhabited by Jesus, our brother High Priest, and by our Father who receives him in love, then I know that in that place my desires are made right; they will find a "fitting" place in his heaven. The Crucified One sits at the right hand of the Father in that place, so I now know that whatever my heart cries will be purified by the same cross and resurrected in that place to be a truly fitting and good thing. In short, when I pray to our Father in heaven, I say whatever I need to say. I ask whatever I need to ask. And the Spirit interprets it into divine conversation with our Father, and for our unqualified good. In that place.

- Nathanael Szobody

More meditations

To be notified of future meditations just email me at Nathanael@Szobody.com