This story comes from Ghana in Africa. It says that way back in the beginning, heaven was so near to earth that a housewife who was crushing her sweet potatoes into a pulp by hammering them with end of a long pole, kept poking the pole into the bottom of heaven.
God, who lived up there, was not happy with the disturbance. So he complained to the good lady. But she paid no attention at all and kept right on mashing her sweet potatoes and prodding into the bottom of heaven.
So the Lord got angry and shouted down her, “Because you humans don’t appreciate my nearness, I’m going to rise so high in the sky that none of you will ever be able to reach me.”
That is the African explanation of why we spend our lives trying to get to heaven and it always seems to be so far away.
Come to think of it, though, maybe we’re looking in the wrong places. According to the scriptures, the kingdom of heaven is within us. What a perfect place to hide it: very few people look inside.
