Lately I’ve felt like I’m in a constant state of preparation: preparing to get married, planning a wedding, finding a job, moving, making plans for our bible study for the summer, and so on.

Sometimes the plans succeed, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I try really hard, and things still don’t go the way I had planned. And when I think about everything that needs to get done in the next few months or when another job rejection letter comes in the mail, sometimes I get discouraged.

The other day, I read John 14 where Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

It’s comforting for me to think about Jesus preparing a place for me in heaven right now. The work has already been done. Finally, there will be no more preparing, planning, finding, moving, making, striving, sinning. I will be in the presence of the King, the Creator of the universe, the very definition of love.

Revelation 7:13-17
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”