but I really am certain that this is not at all how God is! If he was I would really agree with you . . . but perhaps we need to look at it from the other way. Creation is an extraordinary thing. The creation of me is an extraordinary thing. When we are young, death seems quite impossible: something we never think about unless someone close to us dies. Once we begin to be aware of just how short our lives actually are, how unbelievably irrelevant all our massive plans and hopes are in the face of this colossal universe, we begin to realise that life is slightly harder than we thought. If we cling to it, we can so easily end up losing it. If our fear of death overtakes our joy in life, then life itself can end up becoming something of a nightmare. When we meet the 'slings and arrows of misfortune' along the way how can we regain our hope and our balance in a very trying world? The 'language' of God (and I will throw the word 'poetry' in here rather than use the dreaded word 'religion') is a means of learning how to live the life that we are given here and now in a truthful, accepting and joyful way.
and then there is the word 'TIME'. There is no aspect of our lives that we understand less than time. It constrains us, runs away from us, teases us, and ultimately ignores us. It also lies to us: so that we misunderstand its very nature and think that what we see and feel is the truth . . . we feel Future, Present and Past but God sees only the NOW . . . and so the way to God is the way to the NOW; the way to life is the way to the NOW. When Jesus talks about God being a 'God of the living and not of the dead' - that is our cue to concentrate and really listen because it IS the key to the whole mystery of 'afterlife' and of our very inadequate concepts of heaven and hell. These can never be more than philosophical twitterings in the face of Mystery. God is calling us out of our misunderstanding about the nature of TIME and the life we see and feel and hear all around us. Jesus impresses upon us the sense of urgency about this. It is urgent because time is short. The time to seek God is NOW and that's the place to seek Him as well: in the NOW.