This chapter is all about perspective—how we see things. Getting an eternal perspective on life doesn’t mean we disregard our life here. It doesn’t mean we abandon our earthly responsibilities and think only of heaven. We must learn to keep our eye on both places. It’s not that heaven makes earth meaningless; heaven helps us get the right perspective on earth and what we do here. A good eternal perspective should make us return to our earthly duties and responsibilities with greater energy and purpose because we understand where this is all leading. You’ve undoubtedly heard it said that some people are too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good. Well, if that’s the case, they are not heavenly-minded at all, or they have the wrong heaven in mind. In fact, they have neither heaven nor earth in mind; they are most likely merely covering for their own irresponsibility.

Jesus came from heaven—was always conscious of it—but was deeply concerned about people’s earthly condition. He healed people without regard to their heavenly estate. If they were hurting or in pain and came to Him to be healed, He healed them—no questions asked. He paid His taxes and made sure His disciples did too. He respected the ruling political system even though it eventually became the means of His death.

Frederick Buechner has said that some people are too spiritual for God. We’re not talking about a head in the spiritual clouds; we are talking about how an awareness of the temporary nature of this life and the eternal nature of the next can help you keep the right view of both.

So the issue is to take your values, your priorities, your possessions, and your schedule and examine them in light of the fact that you will one day live in eternity with God and many of the people you know here on earth. The important thing to remember is that there is a connection between the two. Choices based on eternal values are also good choices from an earthly perspective as well. For instance, a CEO who runs a company based on eternal values, the worth of the individual and the fact that she will one day account to God for her leadership, will be a better CEO than someone after nothing but personal gain. Businesses run on spiritual principles are simply better businesses. People are reading Purpose Driven Life and applying the principles to their work and their daily lives and finding that these perspectives work in the real world. This is not pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by. This is getting the pie right now because we made it following an eternal recipe.

If this life is all we have, we will be constantly looking for immediate rewards. Our patience will be limited. We will be tempted to look for the shortest distance to a goal with the least amount of work. An eternal perspective makes us more long range in our thinking. We learn to hold off gratification for something more valuable that we know is coming. We learn to endure hardship because of what it is producing in us over the long haul.

Character only comes at a price. Character, biblically, is always related to patience and sticking to a task or goal. The word that is used most often for perseverance in the New Testament is a Greek word that means: “to remain under.” The idea is that remaining under pressure builds character. In contrast, our culture is always trying to find the end run around the cost of character—the short cut, the “lite” version, “instant” this or that—but these all end up thinning out character, reducing it to sound-bytes and the stuff of political campaigns. True character can’t be created or captured by the media. It is proven over the long haul in the trenches where faith meets the stresses and strains of real life.

This is exactly why so many passages in the scriptures talk about an enthusiastic welcoming of trials and suffering because we know the ultimate outcome. James even says: “Let it be an opportunity for joy when your faith is tested; your endurance has a chance to grow” (James 1:2-4).

They’d want to shout to me: “IT’S ALL REAL! IT’S REALLY TRUE!” I can’t help but think that this would be the first thing. Then they’d probably tell me to be patient and believe in what I don’t see. But I think they’d also tell me to be faithful to my responsibilities on earth, because everything they have in heaven was built on their faithfulness to the little things on earth.

My mother came almost from heaven to give such a message to our newly adopted son who at the time was about six months old. She was suffering with Alzheimer’s disease and had lost all recognition of any of us. When she met Chandler for the first and only time, she was just coming out of a 24-hour sleep that could have been a coma. That’s why I will always think of this encounter as her coming back from heaven, because she was so close. (She died only days later.) But she came to—wide awake as if someone had stuck her with a pin—and fixed her eyes immediately on Chandler, took his two little hands in hers and blurted out, “So, what are you going to do?” My son actually answered her with some 6-month-old gibberish to which she immediately replied, “Well I’m not surprised!

I somehow think that if my mother could speak to me now, she would ask the same question. The reality of eternity is one thing, but what we do now in relation to it is the big issue for us. These people who have gone before us have finished their work; we still have work to do.

2 Corinthians 5:1-10 Paul compares earthly life and heavenly goals.

Romans 5:3-5 Paul lays out the road to building character.

2 Peter 1:5-9 Peter does the same thing.

James 1:2-4 Welcome trials with joy because you know the outcome.