Aiming at Heaven Beats YOLO

Mike Hosey, Elder

“Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither,” wrote C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity. He scribbled this statement after praising past Christians who had made great achievements precisely because they were looking toward a future home and a future crown – he was speaking of Christians like the Apostles who boldly advanced God’s kingdom, and Christians like the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade. He was also chastising with this statement his contemporary Christians who seemed only to seek earthly achievements, and who seemed to have largely forgotten their future country.

There’s a lot of truth in Lewis’ reasoning. Earth is temporary. Your life here on it is also temporary.  YOLO is a trivial way to live your life if it is only to please yourself with earthly pleasures! Even if you get them, they are nothing more than a wisp and a vapor. They’re gone the moment you experience their fleeting delight.  And there’s nothing more that is good when that life you only live once is finally gone.

But if you seek the kingdom of God first, you’ll get all of those earthly things you need (Matthew 6:31-33), and possibly some of the things that you desire.  But on top of all of that, you get an eternal life in a future home, in a perfect place called Heaven.

But this is no mere abstraction.  Too many people seeking after worldly security, worldly pleasure, or worldly materials, will end up with broken marriages, depression, defeat, pain, anxiety, betrayal, spiritual poverty, and unmet needs.  This is because they’re not seeking the thing they’re made for. Consider this, a man who seeks his own needs over God’s will is probably also going to seek his own needs over his wife’s.  That’s not good soil in which to grow a good marriage. If his wife isn’t seeking God and His kingdom first either, then divorce seems inevitable.

But Jesus tells us that if we seek we’ll find (Luke 11:9). So let’s seek the Kingdom of Heaven and get the best of both worlds.