I've told this brief story before, but it bears repeating.

Many years ago, I was regularly visiting a terminally 8-9 year old boy in the oncology ward of Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto. With each visit I had some interesting fact of our world to tell him, and I related it to a verse in the Bible.

One time I took in my hand-held ham radio and we connected with people around southern Ontario, and had brief conversations with them.

I was going to chat with him about how we're wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), and tell him how the electrical currents in our bodies were just like the electrical currents in the ham radio we used that afternoon. But he spoke first and asked me, “Mr. Rumford, are there dogs in heaven?”

No one had ever asked me that question before!

It took me a few seconds to gather my thoughts.

I realized he was missing his beloved dog at home. He hadn't seen him for months.

I thought about Romans 5 and Revelation 21 where we understand that what was lost by the first Adam (Genesis 3) shall be restored by the second Adam.

I assured him that there were indeed dogs in heaven to run and play with. That made him more peaceful about making an early journey to heaven.

Our verses today assure us of two things. 1. We can know some things concerning the eternal state; and 2. There are glorious things that will only be seen and understood when we enter the glories of heaven itself.

If only our fear of dying became our fear of living, so that our longing to stay here could become our longing to enter the Celestial City, the New Jerusalem.

“Now faith is the certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 (NASB)”