Day 6- Life Is A Temporary Assignment
Life on earth is a temporary assignment…
Chapter 6 reminds us that our life on earth is “like a mist” that appears for a short while then vanishes away. To make the best use of our life on earth we must not forget two truths.. First, compared with eternity our life here is pretty brief. Second, earth is a temporary residence.
If our life here is brief and it’s a temporary residence, how might that affect our values and the way we view “things” here? If we won’t be here long, how is it that we become so attached to the things that are here? If our true “home” is eternal why do we worry so much?
We are reminded that we are Christ’s ambassadors in a “strange, alien and foreign” land. Our challenge is while we live here, not to adopt the values, ideals, priorities, and lifestyle of the world around us. When we are bombarded every day with TV, billboards, sales pitches telling us what we need (and want), it’s difficult to come out from noise and clutter and get our perspective back. We are not of this world. We don’t get our “marching orders” from the world around us.
The idea that is brought up in this reading about spiritual adultery is one that we have to allow to penetrate the hard skin of justification that we have. We all think that what we do is “ok” because it’s so easy to justify it, isn’t it? When we are reminded however that when we take in the values of this world, flirt with it, we actually have the potential of becoming enemies of God. We commit spiritual adultery. This puts a new perspective on compromise doesn’t it?
Another interesting point that is brought out is the fact that there is something left unfulfilled in us for a reason. The idea of God allowing us to feel a “significant” amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life, and that we are not completely happy here on earth because we are not supposed to be this side of eternity, is one that probably a big one to swallow for many of us.
After all, aren’t we supposed to do the things that make us happy? Isn’t our happiness the supreme goal? If it makes you happy do it… hmmm
How do you deal with the idea that our happiness is not the goal, abundant life doesn’t mean our material possessions, and things that are temporary are not important, our life on this side of eternity is just a blip on the screen, and as CS Lewis puts it ” All that is not eternal is eternally usesless…”
Why do we put such importance on things that are temporary? How does changing the way that we look at living here on earth put things into a different perspective? What do you think?