LORD, remind me how brief my time
on earth will be. Remind me that my days are
numbered, and that my life is fleeting away.
Psalm 39:4
I am here on earth for just a little while.
Psalm 119:19
"Life on earth is a temporary assignment." (Warren)
Life is temporary. When compared to eternity, life is oh so very brief. At this point in my life, I can see just how true both of these statements are. We are only on this earth but for a little while.
This life is our temporary residence...not our permanent home. We are but traveler's, aliens in a foreign land. For those of us who belong to Christ, our home isn't of this world. So we shouldn't get too comfortable here. But we become acclimated to living only for the things of this life without a thought of the eternal impact our choices and actions have on the eternal. So often, I place such priority on the temporal things of life instead of investing in the eternal things that will last. Jesus said to store up our treasures in heaven where we are ASSURED of their eternal value in lieu of temporal riches which moth and rust can destroy. It's hard to keep that eternal focus sometimes when in the pressure cooker of life. Things go wrong, problems arise, and it's as if our world will come crashing in. Life has a way of making it's demands, rudely interrupting any good thing we are doing for God, distracting us from our eternal purpose. Our enemy knows how to cause the temporary to crowd out the eternal in my life...and I seem to fall for it far too often than I should!
Our lives are brief. The Bible says our lives are but a mist...gone in a moment of time. I'm about at the halfway point of my life, at least I hope I've got at least another 44 years to go. I've reached middle age. Yet, deep down inside, I still feel like I'm that 16 year old girl who was excited about life. It seems like it was only yesterday that our oldest son, Mathew, was born. Now 21 and in the Air Force, I wonder where my little blond hair, blue-eyed baby went off to. I wonder why time seemed to pass so slowly during the years our children were in diapers, yet travel at warp speed once they hit high school. My sister has recently become a grandmother (ha ha, sis, you beat me to grandma status), I have several friends who have also recently become grandparents or who are about to...and I taught their children who are married and having children! I know that I'll be next, but I still hope that grandmotherhood is a little bit away...no, a LONG time away. What I'm trying to say here, is that life is BRIEF! When I was younger, time seemed to pass so slowly. Now that I'm older, my perception of time has sped up. I hope the next 44+ years passes a little more slowly than the last 20 have!
Life is temporary. Life is brief. We'll never feel completely satisfied on this earth because this world is NOT our permanent home. We're only passing through...hopefully leaving it a little better than we found it. Lighting a fire for Jesus Christ on our journey through it.
No major revelations for me today as I read Chapter 6 of The Purpose Driven Life. Just a big reminder that I need to keep my gaze upon the eternal, not the temporal.
Here are just a few of my favorite quotes from today's devotion:
- Your identity is in eternity, and your homeland is heaven. When you grasp this truth, you wills top worrying about "having it all" on earth.
- In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life - longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity.
- You will never feel completely satisfied on earth because you were made for more.
- Eternal values, not temporal ones should become the deciding factors for your decisions.
- It is a fatal mistake to assume that God's goal for your life is material prosperity or popular success, as the world defines it. The abundant life has nothing to do with material abundance, and faithfulness to God does not guarantee success in a carrer or even ministry.
- In God's eyes, the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as a temporary assignment ans serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity.
I must remember that this world is NOT my home.
VERSE: So we fix our eyes on not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18
Question: How should the fact that life on earth is just a temporary assignment change the way I am living right now?
In His Love, Cathy
(Warren, Rick. The Purpose Driven Life. Zondervan. 2002. Print.)
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