We'd spent the weekend settling our middle child into her first college dorm room, and I was exhausted. I was also fighting a deep emptiness growing inside.

There's nothing I've enjoyed more than being the mother hen. And now the brood was scattering. With two in college and one in high school, more often than not it's just me and the better half in our nearly empty nest, with a little chicken feed sprinkled on the floor.

My life is one of those feast-or-famine scenarios. I work at home, so when the kids are around in the summer I spend days racing about searching for 15 minutes of quiet and the charger to the laptop so I can begin working. Then fall comes, the kids return to school, and I stand at the window like a sad puppy wondering how long before somebody returns and generates some desperately needed noise.

There was a palpable void left by the latest one vacating the nest. Her younger sister at home missed her. Her dad missed her, and I missed her. It was a void that would take some getting used to. I missed discussing current events with her, as well as theology and fingernail polish.

My days of being a mother were basically over. I wondered if this ache so deep within would ever ease. I started to pray. "Dear Father"—that's as far as I made it when it struck me.

I was praying to God the Father, the same one Jesus cried out to in the Garden of Gethsemane calling, "Abba, Father." Abba is the Aramaic word for "father" that was often used by a child. In our vernacular it is equivalent to "Daddy." It is a term of endearment that denotes warmth and devotion.

Theologian J.I. Packer said the whole New Testament could be summed up in a single phrase—a revelation of the fatherhood of the holy Creator. I sat for a while contemplating this.

And then, knowing believers are to reflect Christ's relationship with the Father, I realized I had been exhausted by a lie. The Father and Son would never part company. God the Father would never walk away from His adopted sons and daughters. Called to mirror the perfect Parent and perfect love, albeit in my flawed and fallen human way, I was assured that my relationship with my children would remain intact.

There would be changes, but the kids would still come home for long weekends and for summers, for wild laughter around the kitchen table and for discussions by the fire. I could never cease to be a mom. And the God of heaven and earth could never cease to be Abba, Father.

Jesus charged His followers to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). The apostle Paul said it this way: "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2). But how?

• PRAY: Who does God want you to reach out to?
• INITIATE: Grab breakfast, go fishing, hit the mall. Spend time together and then schedule a regular time to meet.
• PREPARE: Know what you will discuss. Talk about what God has been teaching you lately. Ask him the same. Bring Scriptures to study together.
• BE VULNERABLE: Your failures can be as powerful as your successes. You can teach what you know, but you will reproduce what you are. Authenticity breeds trust.

Although discipleship will include personal development (such as your disciple's character), it goes beyond an introspective self-focus. The Bible holds evangelism and discipleship in tandem, so spend time together sharing the good news with others.

I cried at the foot of Ron's bed. At that moment, I couldn't know that my 42-year-old friend would die two weeks later, but death was imminent: His doctors had given him just two weeks to two months. The cancer was inoperable.

"Have you thought much about heaven?" I asked.

Ron nodded his head. Before being bedridden, he might have made a joke or teased me. Today, he answered with a somber tone.

"To tell the truth," he replied, "I am a little scared. Not about whether I will go—I am certain of that—but of facing God." Ron's voice broke. "Of seeing the Creator of the universe."

Heaven was as real to Ron as the cancer eating his body, and at that moment, more central to the meaning of life than anything else on earth. My Bible-study leaders in college called that an "eternal perspective." Author Joseph Stowell explains it this way in his book Eternity:

"At the heart of [Jesus'] life on this earth was the reality of eternity and heaven. . . . Heaven must also be our consuming point of reference. . . . We are called and redeemed to live here in the light of there, reflecting the values of the eternal kingdom of God in the earth-side places that we inhabit."

As believers, we must find ways to refocus our attention on this eternal destination. A change of perspective like that will change everyday life.

At Ron's funeral, a friend sang I Can Only Imagine. The song suggests the worshipful magnificence of seeing Jesus in heaven, but my challenge is to think about heaven today. Should I risk initiating a spiritual conversation with someone, inviting him to know Jesus? How should I spend my money and my time? God tells us about heaven in the Bible so that we might make faith-filled decisions based on it.

One day we won't need faith to understand heaven. My friend Ron finally knows what matters and what does not. The mysteries of the supernatural have been made clear to him.

Heaven is as real as cancer. Only much more powerful.

September 11, 2001, began as any other day. Spouses kissed each other goodbye; children bustled off to school; workers commuted into the city. Tragically, at 8:48 a.m. life was never the same again. Commercial airplanes, guided by terrorists, exploded into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Approximately 3,000 people perished that day. The rich died along with the poor, the famous with the unknown. Death, the great equalizer, had come calling.

Mourning, funerals and eternity were unavoidable issues facing America, the wealthiest society in modern civilization. But all the gold and silver in the world was worth nothing to those who died. Ironically, $250 million in gold and silver lay uselessly in the basement of the World Trade Center.

Every person who has ever lived shares a common experience: We each will die. Are you ready for eternity? "How do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?" says Matthew 16:26 (New Living Translation). It is absolutely shocking that so many people wander through life without certain knowledge of where they will spend eternity.

Life is full of choices of varying significance. While the decisions that are part of daily living cannot be overlooked, our tendency is to become so preoccupied with such details that they obscure the more important questions bearing eternal weight. It is so easy to do nothing about our spiritual lives. But "doing nothing" actually is making a choice, and will ultimately result in our own destruction.

It breaks my heart to see people throwing their lives away, thoughtlessly, as if there were no tomorrow. I grieve over those who have chosen to go their own selfish way, rejecting God's gracious offer of forgiveness in Christ.

Thankfully, Scripture teaches that there is still time for them to repent and receive the priceless gift of eternal life, bought and paid for on the Cross by the blood of Jesus. Peter writes that God "does not want anyone to perish, so He is giving more time for everyone to repent" (2 Peter 3:9, NLT).

Yet I still mourn and weep over those who do not understand the reality of heaven and the wonderful Savior who has prepared it for them.

Perhaps they question the reality of heaven and hell. The fact is that God's Word, the Bible, is proven to be history's most reliable document. It is replete with references to heaven and hell as real places where real people go at the end of their lives. Jesus spoke often about heaven and hell and the need for all to "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matthew 4:17, New International Version).

The horrible events of September 11 reawakened many Americans to the harsh reality that a war rages between good and evil, and each day we must choose on which side we stand.

Speaking to the world, President George W. Bush said, "Every country in every region has a decision to make: You are either with us, or you're with the terrorists," and that those who aided the terrorists would "share the same fate" as the terrorists.

These statements are exact parallels of the choices God has offered humanity. We either accept Christ, choosing to stand with Him in the kingdom of light, or we reject Christ, choosing to stand with the devil in history's final hour of judgment.

In 1990, I learned I had prostate cancer. In 1998, I was informed that I had pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable disease. In 2001, my blood tests confirmed the early stages of diabetes. Over the years in the waiting rooms of medical offices, I have glanced around the room at those who waited with me. Their thoughts were written plainly on their faces: "What will I do if the news is bad?"

During those times I have wanted to jump up and tell each person of the joy I feel in knowing that death for me is merely a portal, a passage from this life to a much better one.

With gratitude to our great God and Savior, I can say that my incurable disease has given me a new and fresh walk with our Lord. I have been liberated to focus on some of the most important and exciting projects of my entire life.

Dear friend, I pray that you will take action, making the wise choice for heaven. Then you can walk in confidence, not in fear—in joyful expectation of a warm embrace from our living God, not in dread of hell's torment. With our eternity secure, we can be prepared for any sudden turn in the road of life.

A lone toddler wandered in front of me at EPCOT's Showcase of Nations at Walt Disney World. My friends and I had been talking and laughing, but it disturbed me to see the little boy by himself. I stopped to watch him for a moment, hoping a harried parent might grab his hand and lead him away. But no one came.

Worried, I looked around. Nobody appeared to be watching this little boy, neither was anyone visibly horrified that Junior had gone missing. Cautiously, I walked closer to the 2-foot-tall tyke and kneeled down to ask him a question.

"Where's your mommy and daddy?"

Not yet verbal, the child simply pointed in a direction. With nothing more to go on, I took his little hand, abandoning my friends in front of Disney's version of "Canada." We walked toward "England," and as we approached the concert pavilion there, the little guy let go of my hand and waddled up to a couple who knew him by name. Though their child had wandered the equivalent of two city blocks, these negligent parents didn't even know their son was gone.

Just as the young couple was unaware of their missing child, so our non-Christian friends remain oblivious to spiritual reality. Most often, they do not know they need a Savior—that without Jesus, we are all destined for hell. Unless someone—you or I—points out this reality, they may discover the truth for themselves when it is much too late.