Northside Church of Richmond

This question and others like it have been on my mind in recent months. My life has gone through so many changes this past year that it feels like I’m on one big roller coaster. When I feel as though I’ve mastered the ride, there’s suddenly a big drop out of nowhere (I haven’t actually been on a roller coaster, but I’m just guessing what it feels like). COVID-19, issues of racial injustice worldwide, injury, broken relationships, the list goes on. I was starting to wonder where God is in all of this. My parents got me into the The Bible Recap with Tara-Leigh Cobble at the beginning of this year. I had tried other bible reading plans in the past, but I always found it hard to digest what I was reading. Soon, I was starting the book of Job and listening to the corresponding podcasts and I was like, “Wow, my suffering isn’t on this level, but I can relate to you Job.” God had declared him righteous and blameless in His sight, yet allowed him to be tested by Satan.  Job was going through

  As a person who grew up in the church, I’ve heard about Heaven my entire life. As a 5 year old I could have told you that Heaven is where we go when we die. I could have probably even told you that it meant we go to be with God forever. I pictured mansions, a table with lots and lots of food (thanks Audio Adrenaline), and baby cherubim floating around (spoiler alert: it will be much greater than my 5 year old fantasy). To be quite frank, as a child, Heaven mostly felt like a “get out of jail free” card because I was mostly just afraid of going to Hell. Heaven, on the other hand, was such an abstract thought that it didn’t really excite me.  The concept of eternity can be scary to think about because our human experience has no category for such a thing. I’ve heard it often said that as Christians we should always be looking towards eternity. C.S. Lewis famously said “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thou