Making sense of Heaven and the Heavenlies

My cousin and others have recommended the book "Appointments with HEAVEN". This book is self told stories of Dr Reggie Anderson. Reggie grew up in a Christian family in rural Alabama in the sixties, but fell away from his faith in high school and college due to questions he had about God resulting from tragedies in his family. God never quit pursuing him and he came back to faith as he completed medical school, married, and began practicing medicine outside Nashville, Tenn.

As a physician his stories focus mainly on experiencing life and death of patients where he had personal observations of heaven and hell. In addition to his own senses of sight and sound as patients died, some actually related similar experiences as they had been clinically dead, only to return to life to share with him their own experiences.

He recalls occurrences of light, fragrance, and warmth as the veil opens and patients pass to the other side. In this context Dr Anderson sees Heaven as a destination of the soul of the believer, where it leaves this body ("shell") and is "birthed" into a body that is restored to perfect health and joy. In Heaven Christians are reunited with loved ones who had gone on before them. The details of Heaven as a destination are never clear and he admits they may be different for different people. These encounters with Heaven are real for Reggie and more pronounced than his experiences on this side of the veil. He contrasted the sights and smells of Christians with non Christians at death, convincing him of the realities of hell.

While Heaven as a destination is the book's headline, much of the book is how God provides Reggie with guidance and protection as he engages life and patients in chronic situations. His return from atheism occurred as God visited him in a dream providing him healing from his family tragedy, and a road map for his marriage and career. While his struggle with questions about God never were completely resolved, God continually provided him sufficiently for his faith.

These experiences is what i have called "the provisions and privileges of the Heavenlies," a notion i received from Dallas Willard's book "Divine Conspiracy" and my personal study of Scripture. I have been an advocate in my later years that Christians have access to Heaven before this body deteriorates and dies thru faith. I was pleased to see that eventually Reggie recognized this as much as he had been inspired to relate Heaven as a destination to the reader.

Late in the book he says, "When we are young, we often get the impression from adults that heaven is light years away, off in space somewhere, or at the very least, up in the clouds. ... We often think of heaven as an end point or a final stop on a journey. We look at life on earth as if it begins and ends here, thinking that heaven somehow lies outside all that. I view it differently. During our lives here on earth, I don;t believe we're walking toward heaven - I believe heaven walks alongside us."

I couldn't have said this better myself and certainly worth pondering ....

From Ephesians - where we reside as believers

"Blessed (lavish our affections) be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed (bestowed on) us with every spiritual blessing (provisions) in the heavenly places in Christ."

"But God. who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which he loved us, raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."