Heaven is generally thought to be far-off—if not exclusively in the hereafter, at least not here and now. The belief is that we must pursue this good or acquire it from without rather than awake to it within. Yet Christ Jesus said plainly, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20, 21. He urged repentance—a change of thought—in order that we might see and experience the kingdom of heaven at hand.
We pray in the Lord's Prayer that God's kingdom come and that His will be done on earth (to our present sense of things) as it is in heaven (to the divinely real). But do we rightly conceive of heaven? Does it seem so remote and otherworldly that it has little bearing on our present affairs?
Actually, heaven has everything to do with present good. Christian Science helps us discern this. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, defines "Kingdom of Heaven" as "the reign of harmony in divine Science; the realm of unerring, eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul is supreme." Science and Health, p. 590.
