“At the top of the escalator,” my wife says…

“Meet me at the top of the escalator in 30 minutes.”

We’re at the mall running errands.

“See you then,” I say.

Little do I know that in the next 30 minutes I will experience a taste of heaven.

Ahead of me…

A family…

Mom… Dad…Two daughters and a son…

Walking slowly…

Talking…

Laughing…

Smiling.

I move past them…

And almost bump into a woman walking backwards.

“Sorry!” she says…

And keeps marching briskly backwards…

Pumping the weights she carries in each hand.

I like malls.

I like malls because there are so many people in them.

Each person with their own story…

Their own history…

Their own reason for being there that day.

Smiling as I walk through the crowds…

My errands finally finished…

I head back to the top of the escalator.

I’m early.

Waiting for my wife…

I watch and listen to people around me.

Two women speak briskly in Polish.

A man and woman talk in Spanish.

Another couple speaks French.

A family converses in a language at which I can only guess.

The diversity of God’s world is exhilarating.

“A taste of heaven …”

That’s what a friend calls it whenever she experiences the diversity that God created by making each of us unique.

“It is a taste of heaven,” she says, “because that is what heaven will be like…”

Heaven…

Displaying the wonder of God’s diversity.

But is there a wonder hidden behind the diversity we see?

A deeper wonder still?

Perhaps the real wonder lies in what unites us all…

In the God-created common purpose that fills each of our hearts and souls…

To bring glory and honor to God…

…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.  Matthew 5:16

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!  Psalm 115:1

To love God…

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  Deuteronomy 6:5

To show our love for God by loving others…

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  1 John 4:11

If only we wouldn’t wait for heaven to find that common purpose…

For in each moment that we find it here and now…

We bring a taste of heaven to this earth…

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Matthew 6:10