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I went for a walk among the tombstones yesterday. Your may think, Morbid? Weird? But it wasn’t my first time doing that sort of thing.

I quietly strolled around the small, real old cemetery near where I am writing this. I saw tombstones dating back to the early 1800’s! Some burial places have been reclaimed by nature with dates and names no longer recognizable. A handful of other crypts are recent.

One of the burial places looked kind of eerie…

At the bottom of the above headless statue of an angel with severed wings are the words, ‘Plant Kindness!’ Obviously whoever decapitated the thing didn’t know how to read.

So, as I walked around reading the stones, “Rest In Peace,” “Safe In The Arms Of Jesus,” and “Devoted Husband, Father, and Brother,” a few thoughts came to mind that gave me peace.

Something Jesus said kept echoing in my mind that gives us serious perspective about life. He said,

“Don’t save treasures for yourselves here on earth. Moths and rust will destroy them. And thieves can break into your house and steal them. Instead, save your treasures in heaven, where they cannot be destroyed by moths or rust and where thieves cannot break in and steal them.” Matthew 6:19-20 ERV

Of course Jesus wasn’t downing protecting keepsakes and meaningful things. And He wasn’t trashing the idea of having a nice bank account, savings, and being financially responsible. But the Lord was giving us perspective, reminding us that being focused on what’s down here is not where it’s all at.

Some people are all about the mighty dollar. Like the guy who always told his wife that what they had was his money, his fortune, and that he didn’t want her touching it. At his funeral, she leaned over the casket and quietly slipped a check into his suit jacket, a check for a million dollars made to him. And she said, “Here you go honey, you can have it.”

You and I know we can’t take anything with us when we die. Someone else is going to enjoy the fruit of our labors. The point is to keep our eyes on eternity and to make sure that when our time comes we’re going to go up that eternal elevator and not down.

This is not all there is…

Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins so that if we believe in Him by faith, we will make it to heaven one day! And there, in heaven, Jesus said He has built mansions, places for us to live that are beyond our wildest dreams. And gold is something that will be so abundant in heaven that we will walk on it. Ironic, isn’t it? The very things the Lord tells us not to hold tightly to down here will be part of our reward up there!

One more thing caught my attention as I walked among the tombs… a pair of gloves someone had left behind.

Maybe they belong to the person who dug the last hole for the last casket. I don’t know or want to know… disturbing! But the empty gloves reminded me of how empty life on earth can be.

You may still not be seeing the picture I am trying to portray, though. So here it is in plain type setting: Knowing God through having an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, fully satisfies now and gives us hope and peace beyond the grave. Yes, cemeteries usually go hand in hand with tears, grief, and heartache. That’s normal and therapeutic. But the life God promises us is not just for the here and now but also for the hereafter.

The heavenly life the Bible points us to is about companionship, about knowing and being with our loved ones forever, about stunning beauty, about fun times and laughter and wonder, about eating and drinking and doing those things we love, and about being with the Lord. We will be riding on a spiritual high forever! I want that… don’t you?

So, next time life is draining you, maybe go for a walk among the tombstones. You’ll gain perspective and be reminded that this life on earth is not all there is but that there’s a better one ahead after the grave.

Thanks for reading. Leave me a comment if you’d like.

Ps. If you want to think more about heaven, check out chapter 9 of my recent book, Hecklers In Your Crowd: Silencing The Voices That Hold You Back.