If you're a child of God, you do not just go around once on Earth. You don't get just one earthly life. You get another-one far better and without end. You'll inhabit the New Earth! You'll live with the God you cherish and the people you love as an undying person on an undying Earth.

If we come to see the purpose of the universe as God's long-term glory rather than our short-term happiness, then we will undergo a critical paradigm shift in tackling the problem of evil and suffering. The world has gone terribly wrong. God is going to fix it. First, for his eternal glory. Second, for our eternal good.

If Miss Watson had told Huck what the Bible says about living in a resurrected body and being with people we love on a resurrected Earth with gardens and rivers and mountains and untold adventures--now that would have gotten his attention.

If I promised you a new car, would you say, "If it's new, it probably won't have an engine, a transmission, doors, wheels, or windows"? No, you'd never make such assumptions. Why? Because if a new car didn't have these things, it wouldn't be a car. Likewise, when Scripture speaks of a new Earth (2 Peter 3, and Revelation 21), we can expect that it will be a far better version of the old Earth, but it will truly be Earth.

Reality's such a pain sometimes, you know?

we are not "to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Our parting is not the end of our relationship, only an interruption.

Romans 8 contains a powerful theology of suffering. There's the groaning of those dying without hope, and in contrast, the groaning of those in childbirth. Both processes are painful, yet they are very different. The one is the pain of hopeless dread, the other the pain of hopeful anticipation. The Christian's pain is very real, but it's the pain of a mother anticipating the joy of holding her child. It

Bishop Ryle assured his flock, "Those whom you laid in the grave with many tears are in good keeping: you will yet see them again with joy. Believe it, think it, rest on it. It is all true."[9]

Our degree of happiness in life largely depends on: the amount of happiness we believe should be rightfully ours our ability to find delight in a fallen world God will redeem our ability to see the little things—the ten thousand reasons for happiness that surround us that we easily ignore

in Heaven (and ultimately on the New Earth) is a line going out from that dot for eternity. If we're smart, we'll live not for the dot, but for the line.

What if one day we discover that God has wasted nothing in our life on Earth? What if we see that every agony was part of giving birth to an eternal joy?

God uses suffering and impending death to unfasten us from this earth and to set our minds on what lies beyond.