The warning sign read: “Stay at least three feet away from the fence.”
My family and I were just west of Denver when we stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom. A tall chain-link fence ran along the back side of the property. Behind the fence, mounds of dirt were scattered here and there.
The same warning sign was repeated every 20 feet. I was curious. What’s the big deal?
Then I saw it. One of the mounds moved … then grunted.
Two dozen or so wild bison were resting in the grass. A designated sanctuary was preserved for this herd, transforming several thousand acres next to Interstate 70 into a scene from the old, untouched west.
A cow and her calf stood up. I crept closer, snapping photos on my iPhone as they began grazing.
Every shot was ruined with that stupid fence in the foreground. The photos all looked like I was at a zoo. How was I to impress anybody on Facebook when there’s a barricade between these hairy behemoths and me?
I glanced at the sign again. If only I could shoot a photo through a chain link. To do this, I’d have to ignore the sign and touch the fence.
The urge was almost uncontrollable.
I looked around. My family was using the restrooms … There was no security guard around …
The baby bison was nonchalantly inching his way closer to the fence as he grazed. Mama bison had her back turned toward us.
Come on little guy, walk over here to me. Everything within me wanted to get as close as possible. If I could reach my finger through the fence and just touch his fur, I’d be satisfied.
It never happened. A park ranger walked by and I decided I didn’t need to get in trouble.
How often I have the same urge … to touch heaven, to experience something so real yet so unreachable (at least for now).
I grew up in a church that instilled a real hunger for eternity in me. Heaven became very real to me and still is.
We talked often about the Rapture, Paradise and other topics from the Book of Revelation. I have always been hopeful for the second coming of Christ in my lifetime.
Each time I view the “JESUS” film and I see Christ ascend into heaven at the end of the movie, I think about His second coming.
Like my desire to touch that wild animal through the enclosure, I find myself eager to experience eternity. But there’s this stupid fence called “mortal life,” a shell that separates me from my true home.
I long to be released from this “rest area” we call Earth, to see God face to face and experience golden streets, reunions with loved ones, angels and other spiritual creatures much more magnificent than some smelly bovine.
Talking about eternity and studying it more is what stirs up the desire in us to leave here, the desire to be there. Revelation 21 gives us a great description of heaven. One day we’re going to climb over that fence and it’s going be glorious.
What are you most looking forward to upon reaching heaven? Get us excited along with you and share in the comments below.
“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, English Standard Version).
To further remember Christ’s resurrection into new life, check out Jesus Film’s® short video called, “Easter Explained,” that dives into the meaning of Easter and how Jesus influenced the outcome of our eternal lives.
