A very wealthy man is distressed that he can’t take his wealth to Heaven. So, in his retirement, he spends many years praying to God – beseeching God to make an exception and allow him to take his wealth with him when he dies.

Finally, God responds to the man’s fervent prayers and says. “OK, in your case, I will make an exception – you can bring one bag of wealth with you.”

The man is jubilant and, when he dies, he has a bag full of gold bars placed in his coffin.

When he arrives at the Pearly Gates, he has a bag of gold bars by his side.

St Peter stops him and says “Sorry, but you can’t bring anything from earth into Heaven.”

The man replies. “It’s OK; I’ve got a special exception”. St Peter goes and makes a few phone calls, and comes back to say. “OK, I can see you have an exception, but I still need to check all your hand-luggage.”

St Peter looks in the man’s bag, and says “very good, but why did you bring pavement with you?”

*****

(In Heaven all pavements are paved with gold)

This is a joke, but also illumining.

If we pray for the fulfilment of our desires, God may finally listen and grant us our desires.

God knows that fulfilling our desires will not give us true satisfaction. But, often, we need our desires to be fulfilled so that we become aware of only the limited pleasure we gain; after this disappointment, we may gain the inspiration to aspire for spiritual wealth instead.

At one point in our evolution, we may feel gold is precious and essential to our happiness. But, in Heaven everything is in abundance, so gold is no longer special. Also, if we take Heaven as a plane of consciousness – a consciousness of abundant peace and light – whether we own gold or not, makes no difference.

Notes:

Image top: From book “Our paradise home; the earth made new and the restoration of all things”(1903)
Publisher: Battle Creek, Mich., Review and Herald publishing company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library