Longing for Heaven

There was a day when people thought about heaven without having to be on their death bed. Maybe we're too busy with what's in front of our faces -- mortgage payments, dirty diapers, car repairs, soccer practice, hunting trips -- that we can't justify thinking beyond this world.
Perhaps we've been jaded by the "been to heaven and back" genre linking bookshelves that we've stayed away from meditating on eternity all together.
Maybe we've bought into the silly fear of becoming too heavenly minded that they're no earthly good (because, of course, it's only when we are heavenly minded that we can be of any earthly good).
Whatever the reason for our inattention to the doctrines of glorification and restoration, we would be greatly helped by turning our minds to the heavenlies, meditating on the home which awaits us there. Rather than thoughts of fear and anxiety, knowing that our life on earth will one day end should fill us with hope and joy and longing.
Listen to the words of the Puritan pastor, Richard Baxter:
Oh! if we did but truly believe that the promise of this glory is the word of God, and that God does truly mean as he speaks, and is fully resolved to make it good; if we did truly believe that there is, indeed, such blessedness prepared for believers as the Scripture mentions, surely we should be as impatient of living as we are now fearful of dying, and should think every day a year till our last day should come.… If a man that is desperately sick today did believe he should arise sound the next morning; or a man today, in despicable poverty, had assurance that he should tomorrow arise a prince; would they be afraid to go to bed, or rather think it the longest day of their lives, till that desired night and morning came?
May we live with a holy impatience for that day!