Several years ago, I heard a song with this title, “I Dreamed I Went to Heaven.” The version I heard was not sung with the original lyrics written by Ray Boltz. The lyrics in the version I heard told the story of a person who died and went to heaven. His friend also died and went to heaven, and together they “walked the streets of gold beside the crystal sea.” As they walked, a young man came toward them smiling. He said to the friend, “You may not know me, but you used to teach my Sunday school when I was only eight.” He continued his conversation by telling him that the teacher’s way of life and proclaiming the truth to his class encouraged him to later obey the gospel. The young man then says, “Thank you for giving to the Lord. I am a life that was changed. Thank you for giving the Lord. I’m so glad you gave.”
This was not the only person that the teacher helped go to heaven. There were others. “One by one they came, as far as the eye could see. Each one somehow changed by your generosity. Little things that you have done, sacrifices made, unnoticed on the earth, in heaven now proclaimed.”
The song in its original form, and even the version I heard, teaches some things about heaven that are incorrect. It teaches that we go directly to heaven when we die. It teaches that we may have trouble recognizing one another in heaven. At one point in this song/story, the person with the teacher says that he saw tears in the teacher’s eyes. We know we must wait until the Lord comes to be taken into heaven. We understand that there will be recognition in heaven. We also know there will be no tears in heaven. There is one other thing we also know. Wherever we go, we will take someone with us.
The reason this song stays on my mind and in my heart is because I teach children. I am one of those Bible class teachers that prepares lessons every week, reviews Bible facts, encourages (sometimes begs) them to bring their Bibles and learn their memory verses. For all those weeks I have left my class thinking I didn’t get through, the lyrics of this song tell me there are those out there that may have been touched by something I said.
James says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1 ESV). That is a sobering thought. It should make us spend more time on our lessons and more time in prayer for our students and for ourselves. The Lord is counting on us to not only teach children but to proclaim the Gospel wherever we go using whatever opportunities we have.
Which will it be for you at judgment? Which will it be for me? Will there be someone there because, “the way you lived, the truth you taught, helped to show the way”?
Sandra Oliver