We love the stories with clean edges. Heroes wearing white hats. Villains twirling their mustaches. Stories where good wins, evil loses, and justice is swift.
But life doesn’t work like that.
And neither did the Cross.
That’s one of the deepest takeaways in Colin Smith’s "Heaven, How I Got Here." The Cross wasn’t a glitch in the plan. It was the plan. And the thief—the dying man we meet through Smith’s powerful first-person storytelling—realized it too late to change his life, but just in time to change his eternity.
See, he wasn’t a victim of circumstance. He wasn’t “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He was right where God had appointed him to be: on a cross, beside Jesus, on the most important day in history.
Think about that.
He didn’t even know it until the final hour. One minute he was mocking the Son of God, and the next—he was defending Him. One minute he was headed for destruction, the next—he was asking to be remembered by the King.
Colin Smith’s genius in this book is his ability to crawl inside the mind of that thief. To show us what it felt like. To show us how divine appointments don’t always look like miracles—they often look like misery.
The thief’s agony was the doorway to his awakening.
And that should hit you in the chest.
Because so many of us are living lives that feel like punishment. The diagnosis. The divorce. The broken relationship. The job that went sideways. The child that walked away from the faith. The quiet ache you carry when the lights are off and the silence closes in.
But what if your cross—your suffering—isn’t an accident?
What if it’s an appointment?
What if it’s the very place where Jesus is drawing near, bleeding beside you, whispering your name—not to condemn you, but to rescue you?
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That’s what happened for the thief.
And Smith makes it clear: this wasn’t a fairy tale. This wasn’t legend. This was real. Roman spikes. Splintered wood. Ragged breath. Human cruelty. Divine mercy.
And in the middle of it all… a conversation that would change history.
“Jesus, remember me…”
You want to talk about raw theology? That sentence has no fancy doctrine. No polished prayer. No rehearsed creed.
Just desperation. Just hope. Just enough belief to reach.
And Jesus? He didn’t hesitate.
“Today, you’ll be with me.”
No delay. No conditions. No purgatory. No penance. Just a promise.
And here's what I want to tell you, right now, as someone who’s walked with people through deathbeds, with tears falling on hospital tiles and hearts breaking in hospice rooms: this promise still stands.
Jesus still says, “Today.”
Today, you can be with Him.
Today, you can be forgiven.
Today, you can be free.
And the thief’s story rips away every excuse we’ve got.
Because he couldn’t earn it. He didn’t have time to prove his sincerity. He didn’t show up for a year of Bible study. He didn’t “clean up his act.”
He just believed.
Now, that doesn’t mean salvation is cheap. No, sir. The price was excruciating. Jesus paid it with every drop of blood in His body. He bore the wrath, the weight, the judgment.
And He did it so that a man who had done everything wrong could go everywhere right for eternity.
That’s the Gospel.
That’s what America needs right now—not another program, not another hashtag, not another five-point plan. We need a bloody cross, an open tomb, and the words of a dying King promising life to people who don’t deserve it.
Like me.
Like you.
This book doesn’t just tell the thief’s story. It demands we ask, “What’s mine?”
Because every one of us is hanging on a cross of sorts. And we can either curse the Christ beside us, or cry out for mercy.
The thief made his choice. And he didn’t just stumble into grace. Grace found him. And it will find you, too—if you let it.
Let me say it again: the Cross was no accident. It was an appointment. And if God appointed a dying criminal to be the first man to walk through heaven’s gates beside the Son of God, then He can meet you right now, wherever you are.
The full-length film adaptation of the book is here to see.
Let it speak to you. Let it stir you. Let it remind you that heaven isn’t for the worthy. It’s for the willing.
It’s not for the religious. It’s for the repentant.
It’s not for the strong. It’s for the surrendered.
So stop pretending. Stop waiting for a better time.
Today—if you hear His voice—don’t harden your heart.
There’s still room for one more thief.