Oaks of Righteousness. Their roots must drink from deep springs.

It's only Friday, but here's the deal: My oldest and best friend and I are travelling to Thousand Oaks, California, tomorrow to hear Max Lucado narrate C.S. Lewis's "Screw Tape Letters". Let's GO, Char!
I've been re-reading Randy Alcorn's "Heaven". It is true that "No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him BUT GOD HAS REVEALED IT TO US BY HIS SPIRIT". Don't leave out that last phrase of the scripture or you will view life from the belly of a whale.
I don't know who said this. Maybe it was me when I was young and knew everything, but it's not true: "Some people are so heavenly minded they're no earthly good!" Conclusion: UNTIL I'm heavenly minded I AM no earthly good! Every day I speak to my earthly eyes and tell them: "You guys fix yourselves on Jesus". ...but that's impossible to do without looking past the crud that is all around me and PURPOSING to think on Heaven. I HATE that crud. So does Jesus. I HATE that the world, the flesh and the devil screw up my thinking so I can't concentrate on what is "true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy" without having to yank my mind from the negative groove it prefers and forcing it to "set on things above and not on earthly things". I HATE that some people I adore aren't sure they can trust one another. I HATE that my motives are misread when I struggle so hard to live where I don't belong and I actually get it almost right sometimes.
...and then came yesterday. I sat at Lynda and Bob's kitchen table with a table full of teenagers. The 16-year-old next to me was headed to Hell until a few weeks ago and yesterday I saw hope in his eyes and a smile on his face and once more, I GOT it!
Ted and I travelled and taught the Word on several continents. ...always with a Purpose. I could possibly squeeze out enough money to join millions of widows and widowers and cruise an ocean or two. My pragmatic plan, however, is to wait until the New Heaven comes down and joins the New Earth. Then I will have my glorified eyes set in my glorified head and my glorified body can swoop all over the universes and actually take it all in! Free! ... no crowds, no lines waiting in airports to be "frisked", no dickering with ticket marketers and oh, yes, no wishing I was home after a few nights away from the familiar grooves in my own king-size bed.
We, the "grafted-in" ones, will inherit that New Heaven and New Earth because God says so in Isaiah 65:17-19. "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. ... The sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more".
Meanwhile, we get to participate with Jesus in His Prophetic Plan of "preaching the good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming freedom for the captives and releasing from darkness the prisoners...comforting all who mourn and providing for those who grieve in Zion, bestowing on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair". I got to do that this morning in my living room, with a lovely woman who is an "oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor".
IT'S FRIDAY, BUT SUNDAY'S A COMIN'!
Jo