67. Next, since we are by creation heavens in smallest form and therefore images of the Lord, and since heaven is made up of as many desires as there are angels, each of which is a person as to its form, it follows that the constant effort in divine providence is for each of us to become a heaven in form and therefore an image of the Lord. Further, since this is accomplished by means of the desire for what is good and true, it is for us to become that desire. This, then, is the constant effort in divine providence.

The very heart of providence, though, is that we should be in some particular place in heaven or in some particular place in the divine heavenly person and therefore in the Lord. This is what happens for people whom the Lord can lead to heaven. Since the Lord foresees this, he also constantly provides for it, with the result that all of us who are allowing ourselves to be led to heaven are being prepared for our own places in heaven.

4525. From all this it is evident that in man in particular everything has a correspondence with the spiritual world, and that without this correspondence he cannot remain in being for a single moment; for without correspondence nothing continuous from the very Being of life, that is, from the Lord, could have any existence. Thus lack of connection would exist, leading so to speak to dissolution into nothingness. The reason why the correspondence with man is more immediate and consequently more exact is that he has been created so that he may take to himself life flowing from the Lord, and so has been created, as regards his thoughts and affections, with the capacity to be raised up by the Lord above the natural world, as a consequence to have thoughts about God, to be moved by an affection for the Divine, and thereby to be joined to Him, unlike other living creatures on earth. Beings who have this capacity to be joined to the Divine do not die when everything of the body belonging to this world is laid aside, for interiorly those beings remain joined to him.