Will my pet be in heaven waiting for me?

Will my pet be in heaven waiting for me?
   Let me give the short answer first, and then I can more fully explain my reasoning over the next few posts.

Q. Will my pet be in heaven waiting for me?

A. I am convinced that is possible, but there are some terms and conditions that apply.

1) The biggie is that you have to make it to heaven yourself. Your pet will not be waiting for you in hell, so you'd best accept the blood sacrifice of Jesus and get your salvation locked down.
2) Secondly, just as your admission into heaven is based upon your love relationship with God, your love relationship with your pet also factors into the answer.  That may sound a bit sketchy if it is the first time you've heard that idea, but I will build the case for that in a future post.
3) A major portion of my argument will apply only to sentient pets.  We'll be looking at the Hebrew word nephesh later on, but for the purpose of streamlining this intro, I will say that it would be good if your pet has enough self-awareness to respond to its name. If your pet is an unnamed earthworm, all bets are off. 

None of this Argument is Set in Concrete

I have been looking at this question on and off for quite some time.  I am willing to consider ideas and concepts that are outside the traditional box. My only hard rule that I use as my guide is that it cannot conflict with scripture. Adding new insight and gaining understanding is an on-going process that includes refining some of my earlier notions to clean out the junk. In fact, one of the big reasons that my views have evolved over time is because I keep finding spiritual holes in stuff that I was taught as a child.

Early Understandings

In the case of pets in heaven, the prevailing thought that I was taught as a child was, yes, there are cats in heaven, so if I wanted to play with a cat there would be one available. However, since cats do not get born again, it would not be the exact same "Thomas" that I left behind.  (Thomas was the family pet cat. I have put more of his story in the footnotes.)

Let's check what my Sunday school teachers told me against what the Bible actually says— 
It is fairly easy to find support for the idea that there are animals in heaven, especially horses. I am writing a blog article, not a book; so in an effort to stay as concise as possible, you will get a 3-witness list as proof that heaven has animals.
• Revelation 19:11 – John sees a white horse in heaven.
• Revelation 19:14 – many troops of horses from heaven
• Revelation 5:13 – John hears "creatures" in heaven.  (created beings)

That was easy. There are animals in heaven. But to determine if a specific animal we knew on earth can get there, we are going to have to answer many more questions about mortality, the structure of the soul, if animals have souls, the reality of the spirit realm, transport between the physical and spiritual realms, the purpose of heaven, and God's own purpose and regard for animals. 
Indeed, we need to understand a bit about God's nature to see if His allowing our specific pets in to the next world would even be an option.

There is that verse from 1 Timothy 6:7 that says, "for nothing did we bring into the world — it is manifest that we are able to carry nothing out;" Young's Literal Translation. In that regard, our-earth-pets-in-heaven does not look good.  If we are going to get them there, we are going to need help; and as we will see later, maybe not only God's help but possibly help from the pet itself.

Unfortunately, the Bible does not give a direct answer to our title question. This makes sense when you consider that the purpose of the Bible is to reveal God to man. To get an answer, we will have to search the character of God.   And we also need to develop a more realistic view of the place He designed to be His own home. Believers tend to conceptualize Heaven as their destination, and that is valid, but more than that, Heaven is currently the home of God's Throne.

Imagine for a second, the cartoon view of heaven:  A white-robed saint sits playing his harp; is there a point to having his old Bassett hound howling along at his side?  To arrive at the correct answer as to whether God would have a place and purpose for our pets in Heaven, we are going to need a realistic view of heaven. Although I'm confident that we will have the opportunity to play instruments of praise there,  we've been warned that God's plans for us are beyond all that we can imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9), so we can still push this envelope a little further.

The title of this blog is Bootcamp Planet.  I chose that because so much of this life is basic training for the next. In similar fashion, the present heaven seems to be a grad school. There may be an apprenticeship during the Millennial Reign, but eventually there is coming a new heaven and a new earth. From this perspective, does keeping a pet, now immortal, from your bootcamp days make sense in the greater plan of the Creator?  This is a question that you will have to answer for yourself. Currently, my answer is a very strong, "maybe." 

The point I want to make now is that we should not be trying to answer "Will my pet be in heaven waiting for me?" from our very limited perspective of earth-time grief.  We must try, as best we can, to know the heart of God and see, as best we can, if there is any divine purpose for it.   
I am not going to be able to wrap this topic up in one or two blog posts. But I will give you a hint for hope: 1 Corinthians 13:8, Love never fails.

Next time —
We will be looking more at the heart of God, specifically, His regard for animals.  He created them for more than food and sacrifice. And if you are having difficulty thinking outside the bonds of traditionalism, then I have a homework assignment for you: Write a poem about that goldfish you once flushed down the toilet that is now swimming upstream in the River of Life trying to get to God's Throne Room.


Footnotes

Heaven/heaven — Maybe you noticed that I bounce back and forth on capitalization?  I have sort of tossed conventional grammar rules out the window for this word. If it works as a proper noun place-name in my head, I capitalize it, and if it is more of a common noun concept, I don't.  If you are a grammar cop, sorry, not sorry.  

Ephesians 3:20,21 — Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Thomas —  The first family pet I remember was a brown tiger cat that my dad named Thomas. He was given that name because he was a tomcat in the full slang sense of the word—he slept around.  As a kid, I thought "tomcat" meant "vagabond" because he'd frequently disappear for a couple days.  No one thought it incumbent to enlighten me otherwise.  However, Thomas did have a resurrection story. Instead of his normal one-or-two night stands, he was once gone for a month. When he did eventually show up, he was so decimated and mangy that my mom didn't want him around the house, especially not around us kids. So my dad put him in a 5-gallon bucket with an open bottle of chloroform, put a lid on it, and buried the bucket in a corner of the sheep pasture, thinking that Thomas would drift away into a permanent sleep. About three weeks later, a very healthy Thomas came walking out of the woods. My dad could not believe it. He had to go dig up the bucket. It was empty, although the lid was still on it just as it had been placed for burial. It remains a mystery as to how.