“Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
    and no one will even think about the old ones anymore. (NLT).

A couple of years ago I read a novel by Marilynne Robinson in which an old pastor, who knows his time is short, is writing to the young son born to him in old age. There are things he wants to say to his boy. At one point he says, ‘I think I will find it hard to leave this old world’ (or words to that effect). We may think, ‘That doesn’t sound very Christian.’ But if we are honest, at least some of us will resonate with them. The world, at its best, is so beautiful On some days, in some places, it might be hard to imagine anything more lovely. But the Bible assures us that there is infinitely more, and better, to come. Best of all, we will see the Lord Himself (Rev.22:4).

I think it was C.S. Lewis who encouraged us to think of it like this. A candle is lighting a room, but then daylight comes and overwhelms the limited light of the candle, so it is no longer needed. The greater has come flooding in superseded the lesser.