Dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.
(~William Purkey)

So yeah, this quote.

It’s sort of gotten itself stuck in my brain these days. Words can do that, and music and art too, and I guess maybe anywhere someone’s put some truth out in the world for us to find.

Anyway, I fear that I far too seldom do this last bit, live like it’s heaven on earth.

How on earth is someone supposed to do that when it’s just real clear from the news cycle and the hungry outside our own door that it’s just not heaven here?

But you know, Jesus actually said it. Or maybe it was John. I’m not quite sure just now and just now I don’t have the time to look it up. But it’s there in the Bible – the kingdom of heaven is at hand. At hand. Like, here?

Yeah. I’m not so sure. Heaven certainly doesn’t turn away the refugee or refuse equal rights to her citizens because of the color of their skin or the country of their origin or who they love.

And I don’t mean any disrespect but “at hand”?

Sure doesn’t look like it. At least not to me.

And besides, it’d be easier for me to dance like nobody’s watching than it would for me to believe that heaven is here.

And yet, there’s this something tugging at my brain. Something like a question.

What if?

What if we all did just that?

What if we all just up and lived like it really was heaven on earth and danced and loved and sang and forgot about being worldly and just sort of melted into being heavenly? Stopped the selfishness and started giving freely. Forgot to blame and remembered to love?

What if the gospel isn’t really about some far-off day but about this very day – this very moment? And the only thing that’s really stopping us from living heaven-on-earth is us refusing to live heaven-on-earth?

Not because it’s heaven here. Of course it’s not. And no amount of prose or poetry is going to make it be. Troubles are guaranteed here, and yeah, this one I know was from Jesus.

But He guaranteed He’d be here too.

So maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to live heaven-on-earth, and maybe all it will take is faith that it is possible with Him.

And maybe living heaven on earth could be as simple and as life-changing, even world-changing, as dancing and loving and singing and living faith.

Maybe living heaven on earth could be just as simple and as life-changing as deciding to simply live it, as if it is.

~xo,
LuAnne