One morning, as I was getting ready, my three year old walked in and asks, “Where is heaven?”
As someone who has been in church many days per week almost my whole life, I started to respond reflexively, immediately. What a sweet question. As my mouth began to form the words, I realized I wasn’t sure what I was about to say. I was stuck. How do I tell my son where heaven is without resorting to trivial answers that create visions of baby angels bouncing through billowing clouds? In that moment I was struck that so much of what we know and believe about God is that he is incomprehensible.
I don’t know how to describe where heaven is, using the prior knowledge that a three-year-old might have. What I do know originates with John’s observations—his vision in Revelation—he describes heaven as a place where all peoples, every tribe, nation, and tongue, worship God. An unimaginable place where there is no more crying or pain.
In that moment in my bedroom, I answer: “It’s where God lives, a place way beyond the clouds” and because I know that’s not quite it, I also murmur through my uncertainty, “I’m not quite sure how to say it.”
Later that afternoon, when the whole house stills, I recall the earnest question and my insufficient answer, and I realize this moment reflects the beauty of knowing the Lord. In the knowing and the unknowing, we see God, incomprehensible. May the Lord create in us a desire to innocently question and know more of this God incomprehensible. May that wonder and curiosity spur us on toward loving God and being loved, knowing and being known.
