I was a little late hearing about it, but apparently some fella named Harold Camping made a bit of a stir claiming the pending end of the world on this past May 21st, 2011. By all my observations, it seems that he was slightly misguided. Speaking of pending ends, a more reliable quickly approaching conclusion is that of the World Race, mere weeks away on July 30th as we touch down in NYC. With all this end-talk, I think I’ve gotten some new eyes to see how I’m looking at the here and now.
One of the folks we had a chance to hang out with in Romania had his finger tightly on the pulse of the world economy, and all the instability and potential for pending crashes. Now, it can certainly be hard to invest too much thought into such matters, particularly when your language approaches that of Mr. Camping, without sounding like a crazy person, but it might be a helpful insight on occasion. More specifically, amidst these conversations I was convicted by some words from Paul to Timothy:
“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor
to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their
hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous
and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for
themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may
take hold of the life that is truly life.” (2 Timothy 6:17-19)
As we approach the end of the race, it has been a very real temptation to let the return to America consume my thoughts. As much as I would like to say this year of living out of a backpack in some difficult physical conditions amongst surreal poverty has completely eliminated my desire for worldly comforts, I know that is not the case. I need, as much as anybody else, to hear about this “wealth, which is so uncertain“ – uncertain in the eternal sense but also in the very real, worldly sense of economic collapse. The reality is that nothing in this world will last, and I don’t want the fact that I’ve been removed from the comforts of America to justify a greater embrace of those temporal satisfactions when I return. My eternal hope gets hijacked and dead-ends with the next big thing (lately, our return to America), effectively
taking my eyes off of the eternity that I long to direct my life towards
and formulate my decisions around. This isn’t just the “right Christian mindset” – this is the means to “the life that is truly life,” right now and for eternity.
“they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth…longing for a better country – a heavenly one.”
