What Isn't Temporary?

Something To Think About, Temporariness:

The mom of a new bride was talking to me recently.   "How are the newly-weds?" I asked. "They are doing fine.  They are really enjoying setting up their temporary apartment." The young couple is barely back from their honeymoon.  Both are college students.  The apartment they'll be living in for the next year doesn't open up for another three weeks or so, so they are crashing where one of them lived pre-nuptials.  At first I smiled within.  "Young love," I thought.  "Why go to all the trouble of setting up a place for such a short time?" The fact is, though, we all live on a precarious balance.  My house, car, wardrobe, computers, and stuff in general is all daily succumbing to moth and rust.  What remains will be consumed with fire. Yet God has given me all that He has entrusted to me so thatI can enjoy it.  Clearly maximum gratification comes from using my stuff to the glory of God. At the time the Mother-of-the-Bride spoke with me I was involved in a remodeling project.  I've been doing these for a long time.  One of the calculations that almost always comes into play is, "How long will it last?"  Do I spend the extra money for the better material, or is the less expensive route OK?   My wife questioned me about one decision I made on this project.  My reply was, "I want this to last until I die."  I do, and at my age that is a realistic metric.  The problem is I don't know when my maker will recall me.  The successful farmerthought he had many years of plenty ahead of him.  In truth his future on earth was measured by mere hours.   Peter asks a probing question, "Since all these things are to be destroyed . . . what sort of people ought [we] to be . . . ?" (2 Peter 3:11) I need to constantly keep in mind that everything around me is temporary.  Jesus told us that we should lay up treasures in heaven, not on earth. It's STTA.

Something To Think About Power & Temptation, 5/28

While reading Millard Erickson's Theology.  I was reminded that just as God's power holds all creation together, Hispower likewise is the resource that enables the Christian--as in "me"--to endure temptation.     “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NASB95) I sit in my chair confident that the atoms will not suddenly quit holding hands depositing me unceremoniously on the floor, which except for God's providential conservation, also, wouldn't be there to catch me.  I need to muster the same confidence when I face temptation that God will, indeed, already has, made a way for me to resist. It's STTA.

I'm pretty sure it's too soon to quit.

A long time ago I built a set of shelves for my living room.  There was a window in the middle of a wall.  One shelf unit on the left, another on the right.  The lower part of the units was deeper than the upper portion.  So about thirty inches off the floor there was a ledge.  I built the left unit and put it in place and was pretty pleased.  I started in on the unit on the right.  When I set it in place, I could immediately see that something was wrong.  That ledge part of the unit looked like it was about a foot higher than the one on the left.  Really it was 3/4 of an inch, but it stood out like it was much more.  
I very much wanted to be done.  I remember laying down in the floor, staring at the obvious error, and trying to come up with a good reason why I didn't have to fix it.  All my reasons to leave it alone were short-sighted.  Consideration of how long these shelves were going to be a part of the main room in my house finally won the argument.  Back to the shop. . . .

When trying to find that sweet spot between settling for that which just won't do, and adapting to that which is beyond my control, that distinction between short and long term is something to remember.  Wisdom counsels us to never sacrifice the eternal on the altar of the temporary.  (I heard that somewhere.)  Yet, how often for the sake of temporary convenience, or short-term comfort do we settle--forfeiting long-term gains?
Maybe it makes sense, the night before that art project is due to declare it an ashtray and turn it in for a D.  It makes no sense to treat my life that way.  If you are still breathing God's air, it's too early to quit.

We aren't done yet.  Stay tuned.  (There is much that is out of my control, but nothing is outside the reach of God.  Lord willing, tomorrow.)

It's STTA.
 

What Is Solid?

A friend recently had an experience with which I'm familiar. She was driving on the interstate, I was on a country road, but both of us actually saw a large tree fall and block the road. Neither of us were driving during a storm or an earthquake. I remember the day the big pine blocked my route there was some wind, but nothing that tree hadn't withstood thousands of times. Likewise for the day my friend saw the lumber fall.

Both crashes were the result not of some catastrophic event, but long, slow, gradual processes. Saturated ground, the pull of gravity, changes in the balance of the crown of the tree, combined with a fairly gentle wind caused something that looked immovable to instantly stop somethng else that should be moving.

I'm old enough to see in my life, and observe in others, the accumulation of small forces. I've seen lives crash with great disaster, because those influences were allowed to continue unabated.

What is undermining your life?

lt's STTA.