What’s the difference between heaven and hell?
There’s an old Japanese parable about a man who is shown the afterlife. In one place, there’s a long table filled with incredible food, yet everyone is starving. Each person has chopsticks so long they can’t feed themselves.
I get told by some of my fellow Christians that I'm going to hell because I'm a Latter-day Saint. So, that got me thinking. What is hell? There's an old story from Japan that completely changes how you think about heaven and hell. It's often called the parable of the long chopsticks. A man is given a tour of the afterlife. The first place he visits is hell, but it isn't what he expects.
There's no fire and brimstone and no darkness. Instead, there's a long banquet table covered with the most delicious food you can imagine. Yet, everyone sitting there is miserable. They're thin, skeletal, and angry. Each person is holding a pair of chopsticks that are 3 ft long. They can reach the food, and they can even pick it up. But because the chopsticks are so long, they can't bend their arms enough to feed themselves.
So they fight and curse and starve for an eternity all while sitting there in the middle of abundance. Next, the man is taken to heaven. And to his surprise, the scene is exactly the same. The same table, same food, and same long chopsticks. But this time, the people are joyful. They're healthy with full bellies and are at peace. So the man watches closely, and then he understands.
Instead of trying to feed themselves, each person reaches across the table and feeds the person sitting across from them. No one goes hungry because everyone is serving someone else. Heaven and hell weren't different places, but they were occupied by a different type of people. These people weren't focused on themselves. They were focused on others. Selfishness turned abundance into suffering, but service turned limitation into joy.
So what if we stopped asking how do I get mine and started asking who can I help? Because we can find ourselves in our own personal hell when we are so focused on our own problems and fulfilling our own needs and completely ignore the suffering and problems of those around us. The best way to forget your own troubles is to serve someone else. Heaven isn't about where we are located.
It's about who we are and what we are becoming. And of course, as Christians, heaven is all about being in the presence of our father in heaven through the grace of our savior, Jesus Christ. And remember, when you are in the service of your fellow beings, you are only in the service of your God.
