Whether I’m looking out my window or walking the length of our driveway, I love my view from home. And I love being here on the hill with my books and my very convenient kitchen. I love having eight grandchildren, and I especially love my husband and four sons (who are hilarious).
Even so, having said goodbye to two very close friends this year, I’m operating out of a heightened awareness that all these blessings are temporary. We might call them “earthly pleasures,” not because there’s anything wrong about them, but because they are firmly attached to planet Earth. Even the relationships I treasure will likely be different in God’s forever kingdom.
The Christian life is not a tightrope, so I don’t have to renounce all these much-loved pleasures to be right with God. Rather, because I have been declared right with God, I am looking for a way of thinking about loving the goodness and beauty of this world without making an idol of it.
Three sifting questions I’m asking myself to keep from falling in love with the present world and missing the blessings of eternity.
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Here are some sifting questions I’m asking myself to keep from falling in love with the present world and missing the blessings of eternity:
- Am I putting pleasure before people?
Paul got me started on this search with his melancholy roll call at the end of 2 Timothy. Among others, “Demas, in love with this present world, [had] deserted [him] and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Timothy 4:10).
What do I value most? There’s nothing wrong with a good book and a cup of tea in a quiet house, but if I continually choose my introverted preferences, I’m missing out on God’s best. When we risk being available, we sign up for inconvenience, and inconvenience stretches us in good (and needful) ways. - Am I putting pleasure before time with God?
In Paul’s letter to Timothy, he warns his young friend “that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.” One of the many features of these perilous times is that “people will be… lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” (2 Timothy 3:1-4) There’s the warning again!
The Christian life is not an either/or tightrope in which God is good, and pleasure is bad. We are simply reminded to love the Giver more than his good gifts. - Do I look forward to Jesus’s return?
In the 21st century, it is easy to surround ourselves with so many distractions that we don’t have time to think deeply about anything. The present world is supremely satisfying, especially to those of us in the Northern Hemisphere who have access to running water and Wifi. We don’t lack anything that can be seen, so why would we long for the unseen?
Peter issues this challenge to our feeble priorities: “Though you have not seen [Jesus], you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9).
I pray that this is true of us! Let’s give thanks for all the pleasures of this present world, the blessings we enjoy every day. They are a lens, magnifying and bringing into focus the goodness and the greatness of our God.
The Christian life is not an either/or tightrope in which God is good, and pleasure is bad. We are simply reminded to love the Giver more than his good gifts.
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Holding You in the Light,
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