Savoring the Moment
We know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. - (2 Corinthians 5:1-2, NLT)
When my son Jonathan turned eleven, I remember asking him, “What age are you really looking forward to?” “Sixteen,” he replied. “I want to be sixteen.”
That’s so typical. When you’re young, sixteen is where it’s at. Then you hit sixteen, and you say, “Eighteen — that’s the age to be!” Then you hit eighteen, and you want to be twenty-one because you can do so much when you’re twenty-one. Then you hit twenty-one, and you say, “No one takes me seriously yet. They think I’m still a kid. Wait until I hit my thirties. Those are the earning years.” You hit your thirties and say, “If I could just be in my forties, then I will have arrived.” Then you hit forty, and you say, “I wish I were a teenager again. I wish I could have that carefree life I used to have.” That’s when the so-called midlife crisis kicks in for a lot of people.
Next come the fifties and then the sixties . . . the golden years. You look back, and you have many memories and regrets.
One could almost look back on life and come to the same conclusion that Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister of England, came to: “Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.” That’s a pretty accurate assessment of life apart from Jesus Christ.
But when Jesus Christ is at the center of your life, you don’t have to feel that way. You can live a life that is rich and full on this earth — in spite of old age or limitations or infirmities. And then . . . beyond the grave, the best is yet to come! Just around the corner from this life is an eternal life so wonderful that we can’t even put words to it.
What am I looking forward to? I’m looking forward to each day that God lets me live here on earth. And beyond that, I’m looking forward to that moment in time when I cross over from this world to the next.
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