In the Word: The Weight of Glory

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. It is our desire that this series will aid you in getting in the Bible for yourself and discovering the joy that comes from hearing from God through the pages of His Word.

The believer’s truer reality exists in another glorious place. Heaven may be invisible, but it is more real than this world. Oh yes, and it is far better too—gloriously better. The Scriptural concept of glory is derived from the concept of weight, heaviness, and gravity. The “glory” of heaven seems to be connected with “weight,” as in “weight of splendid worthiness.” In a manner that cannot even be compared with earth and earthly sorrows, heaven is replete with this profound worth. When this life loses meaning, by comparison the next one will have infinite meaning. When this life loses depth, by comparison the next one will have infinite depth. When this life is fragile and fleeting, the next life is infinitely stable. It has this weight.

We will need to be remade with new bodies to even survive the superlatively worthy weight of this place we are destined to live. So, when you cast your expectations upon the place that is to come—expectations that your experience not hold these kind of tears, this kind of emptiness and longing, this kind of loss—do not for a moment fear that heaven will bend or buckle from the pressure of your rising expectations. You cannot cast any expectation of goodness there that is not already planned for you and, know this, that is not already experienced by your child.

When your circumstances have revealed to you how sorrowful life on this earth can be, then, suddenly, those expectations for the next life do build and build.  When you know the depths of what child loss feels like, when you know all of the wrong that must be made right, all of the hurt that must be overcome, and the burden of death to overthrow, then you have a deeply-felt, personal need for heaven to be good, perfect, and true. Considering these rising expectations and needs, you are as prepared as possible to appreciate heaven. That is right. This very minute when your requirements for the next life are mounting is the very time when you can best appreciate that heaven will not disappoint you. Scripture promises that heaven will deliver. It will withstand the weight. In fact, it will more than withstand it. You do not even know how to hope for all that heaven will be. Heaven will greatly supersede all of your hopes.

Eternal glories will outweigh this most weighty experience of your life. And you, child of the living God, will experience it such that when you are there in that great, future day, you will agree with the Scriptures that the earthly loss of your baby was, indeed, “light and momentary” by comparison. Heaven is heavy with everything good. This truth of Scripture does nothing to minimize the intensity and tragedy of the loss that you have now experienced. Rather, it does everything to maximize within the deepest part of the heart, the marvelous reality that is to come through Christ.