On Things Above
March 27, 2006Yesterday I devoured the book The Slumber of Christianity: Awakening a Passion for Heaven by Ted Dekker. He writes Christian fiction, mainly thrillers, which I enjoy greatly. This is his first work of non-fiction. It’s short and well worth reading. He discusses our descent into slumber (we don’t desperately desire to depart for heaven as the early church did) and how to shake it off. A few quotes that really grabbed me:
“…we live in a world of imagination. The moment something becomes reality, it passes into history, right? Our minds are occupied primarily with memories of the past and imaginations of what might occur later. We experience the present, but that experience is so fleeting that our primary engagement of any experience is through the imagination, either in the form of anticipation or memory. We depend on our imaginations.”
“…when you understand that earthly pleasures are meant only as a foretaste of the indescribable pleasures that await us [in heaven], your compulsion to overindulge is tempered by the realization that no particular pleasure can ultimately satisfy.”
