Today I will deviate slightly and talk about some heaven on Earth, but with reference to what eyewitnesses have said. The specific subject is our eyes and vision. In order to have vision, a lot of things must be working together. If any one is missing, there is no vision. First we need a lens to focus an image. The lens in our eye does this. Also it needs to be transparent, and as far as I know, the lens and cornea are the only transparent tissues in the body. There needs to be a screen on which to project the image, and it needs to be curved to allow the image to cover a wide angle. The retina in the eyeball does this. The screen needs to have sensors to detect the frequency and intensity of the light. The cones and rods on the retina do this. There needs to be a processing center that processes this data and a way to get the sensor data to it. This is the visual cortex part of the brain and the optic nerve.
Now is the interesting part. So far this is like a camera. Everything described has its corresponding components on a camera. But the image in the camera is either on light-sensitive film, which must be developed apart from the camera, or it is on a digital array of LCD components on the back of the camera. But we perceive the image formed in our brain as a reality out in front of us. This is a capability no camera that we have possesses. How can the image that is formed in our brain be perceived as outside in front of us? But people in heaven see clearly without their physical eyes; their vision is in some way spiritual. At this point, we have a physical model of a capability that exists in the spirit world of heaven, unlike anything else we know.
If you move your eye, the image on the retina rapidly changes. But you don’t perceive this as a new image, but as part of the same reality as the previous image. Furthermore, the image change and perception appear instantaneously. So a rapid eye movement, which creates a fast sequence of new images, is still perceived as “seeing” the same reality. The physics of the process is absolutely amazing, beyond anything you could imagine if it weren’t for the fact that you experience it all the time and don’t stop to think how impossible it is. This is indeed some of heaven on Earth, but eyewitnesses of heaven, without physical eyes, can see all around and can see objects ten miles away as clearly as those ten inches away. So the ability to see what is ahead of us is just a limited foretaste of the capabilities we will have in heaven.
Another aspect of heaven that our vision gives us is color. There is no physical reason we should see color. The different colors are just different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation in the visible light part of the spectrum. In the radio spectrum, the frequencies have no inherent meaning and can be assigned to different broadcasts at will. Color is simply what the brain associates with each frequency and not some inherent quality of the frequency. Color is only what we perceive, not a fundamental reality. But eyewitnesses to heaven say there are more colors in heaven than there are here. There is no way to describe them, and they are more brilliant than here. So it appears God made our brains see color as a glimpse or preview of heaven.
So when you look out on a colorful scene and move your eyes to take in the whole scene, thank God about the marvelous gift He has given you with your vision and color. It is just a foretaste of His great love for you and His creative power. You might even consider it His invitation to come and join Him in His eternal kingdom.