Lost Opportunities Regained

Lost Opportunities Regained

Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. . . . Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.

— Luke 6:21, 23

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.^a

— JIM ELLIOT

A young woman visiting a missionary in Eastern Europe asked her, “Isn’t it hard being so far away from your [grown] children and missing important events in their lives?”

“Sure,” she replied. “But in Heaven we’ll have all the time together we want. Right now there’s Kingdom work that needs to be done.” This woman deeply loves her family and misses them. She treasures time spent with them. But she also knows where her true home is and that life there will be real life. She knows that relationships in God’s Kingdom will be even better than the best we’ve known here.

I believe we’ll regain in Heaven whatever we passed up on Earth in order to faithfully serve God. Doesn’t that fit with Christ’s promise that those who weep now at their loss will one day laugh in light of their gain?

Consider the millions of Christians who’ve suffered and died in prison because of their faith, snatched away from their families, deprived of opportunities they craved with children and parents and spouses. Wouldn’t it be just like Jesus to reward them on the New Earth with opportunities to do the very things they missed—and far better things as well? Perhaps in some way, on the New Earth, the wives and children of the five missionaries killed in Ecuador in January 1956 by the Auca Indians will receive “comp time” with their loved ones.

Heaven offers more than comfort; it offers compensation. In the same way that the hungry will be filled in Heaven and those who weep will laugh, will those who suffer tragedy experience a compensating reward? Maybe my friend Greg, killed as a teenager in a terrible accident, will experience on the New Earth a greater form of the joy he’d have had on this earth had he not died so young. Maybe everything my mother missed because she died when my daughters were young will be hers in Heaven. She was a faithful servant of God and loved her granddaughters. Though I can’t prove it, I think God allowed her to watch them get married and become mothers. And one day she’ll do more than watch them. I think it’s likely that when they’re together on the New Earth, they’ll enjoy all the time they missed with each other. Maybe those who lost infants to miscarriage and disease and accidents will be given makeup time with them in the new world.

In the movie Babette’s Feast, a Parisian chef is forced to leave her home through the misfortunes of war. Babette ends up in a windswept Danish coastal village, working as a maid for two women who lead a small, austere Christian sect that frowns on such worldly things as gourmet cooking. Babette grows to love these elderly sisters. When she comes into a large sum of money, she spends it all on giving a single dinner party for the sisters and their friends. It’s a picture of God’s extravagant grace. Babette realizes that she’ll never again be able to afford to give such a gift or to prepare such a meal. One of the sisters is a talented singer who had little opportunity to use her gift. Touched by Babette’s generosity, she consoles her: “I feel, Babette, that this is not the end. In Paradise you will be the great artist that God meant you to be! . . . Ah, how you will enchant the angels!”^b

For those who know God, this sentiment is biblical. He’s a God who redeems lost opportunities—especially those lost through our faithful service.

I believe that once the Curse is lifted and death is forever reversed, we may live out many of the “could have beens” taken from us in this life.

One day Nanci read me some letters, translated from Swedish, that were written in 1920 by her grandmother, Ana Swanson, to her family in Sweden. Ana suffered severe health problems. While she was in Montana, being cared for by relatives, her husband, Edwin, was in Oregon, working and caring for their seven children day and night. Ana’s letters tell how Edwin wore himself out, got sick, and died. Because Ana was too weak to care for her younger children, they, including Nanci’s mother, Adele, were placed for adoption. Ana’s letters reflect her broken heart, her nagging guilt . . . and her faith in God.

Nanci and I were overcome with tears as we read those letters. What tragic lives. What inconsolable disappointment and pain. Ana and Edwin loved Jesus. They once had great dreams for their lives and family. But poor health, misfortune, separation, and death forever stripped them of each other, their children, and their dreams.

Or did it?

As Nanci and I talked, we considered what God might choose to give this broken family on the New Earth. Perhaps they’ll go together to the kind of places they would have gone if health and finances had allowed. Certainly Ana won’t be plagued by illness, fatigue, grief, anxiety, and guilt. Isn’t it likely that our gracious God, who delights in redemption and renewal and restoration, will give them the wonderful family times they were robbed of on the old Earth?

What did Ana think when she read, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18)? Perhaps the God of second chances won’t merely comfort Ana by removing her grief for what she lost. Perhaps he will in some way actually restore what she lost. I believe that God won’t just take away suffering; he’ll compensate by giving us greater delights than if there had been no suffering. He doesn’t merely wipe away tears; he replaces those tears with corresponding joys.

When I visit Ana Swanson on the New Earth, I fully expect to see God’s promises fulfilled in her life in the most dramatic, unexpected, and joyful ways.

Have you had some lost opportunities that God might restore on the New Earth? Do you know people you would like to see God reward for their faithfulness by compensating them for what they lost in this life? Do you think it would fit with God’s character and the Bible’s promises for God to do this?

Lord, preserve us from the misguided belief that we only go around once on this earth and that this is our only opportunity to enjoy life. Help us to understand that in the world to come you will reward sacrificial decisions and will compensate us for the adversities we faced. Thank you that you did not forget Ana Swanson, who lives with you now. Thank you that you will have her, and millions like her, in mind as you structure our joy-filled home, the New Earth.