Who Goes to Heaven?

Now, those who know me personally know that I'm a bit of a wise ass, a serious punster, and someone with an unknown amount of faith in the Lord.  I'm not a steady church-goer, but when I do attend, I'm a debtor, so there is always an awkward pause if I'm in a congregation of trespassers.  The relationship between me and God is strictly between the two of us, and as Matthew tells us all to do, I talk to the Lord in secret so that He and I are the only ones privy to our conversation.  I was taught many years ago that the Lord listens to all our prayers, which makes him pretty busy, so I feel we should limit our supplications to those times when divine intervention is truly needed.

I receive memos almost on a daily basis asking for my prayers for one person or another.   Some of these requests I deem necessary and I quietly ask my Lord to help out in the way He finds appropriate.  Others, I ignore, deciding on my own not to take up God's valuable time with trivial matters such as the granddaughter starting at a new school, the family moving to a new city, so-and-so taking a new job, a couple trying to have a child, or a football team meeting their cross-state rival.

I read the obituaries aloud each evening so my non-newspaper-reading spouse will know if someone she knows is no longer with us.  Most folks simply die, but there are those who go on a trip to meet their Heavenly Father, others who pass into the next life, and yet more who seem to have just fallen into everlasting sleep.  The cynic in me wants to say that those who simply died were known to have lead Godly lives so there is little doubt where they went, but those who are said to have taken that trip or passed in the next life, well, perhaps the family wasn't so confidant that their dearly beloved actually made it to those pearly gates, but by saying so, the rest of us will be convinced that the dearly beloved did indeed make it to Heaven.  

After all, as our daughter's pastor once preached, if you don't follow the rules of the Bible, when you die, you'll go to Hell.