The Pack-It-All-In Mentality
Peace is found only in knowing that this world is meant to prepare us for the next and that the temporary pleasures and pains of this world are not our final address. When we live knowing that the God of grace will lift us out of this broken world and is now readying us for the world to come, we can face difficulty with- out wanting to give up and experience pleasure without becoming addicted to it. We live with hope in our heart, eyes to the future, and hands holding this present world loosely. Everything in this world is meant to be a preparation for the next. That means that your marriage isn’t a destination; it is a prep- aration. Your job isn’t a destination; it is a preparation. Your friend- ships and family aren’t destinations; they are a preparation. The sight and sound, touch and taste experiences of this present world aren’t a destination; they are a preparation for a final destination. No, it isn’t wrong to celebrate marital sex or a beautiful bouquet, or a silky chocolate pie, or a wonderful painting, or a death-defying roller coaster. It is right to stop and smell the roses along the way — as long as you don’t treat those roses as a final destination. We’re fat, disappointed, driven, in debt, and addicted because we treat this here-and-now moment as if it were all we have. We have acted as though it is a destination, when all that is going on now is somehow, someway a preparation for the final destination that is to come. Longing for Home One of the ways Scripture talks about the impermanence of the here and now is to say that we are dwelling in tents (2 Corinthi ans 5:1 – 5). This word picture is of pilgrims traveling toward their final destination, who set up their portable dwelling places along the way. Your tent reminds you that you are not at your destination yet. It announces to you that you are not yet home. Most of us have no pilgrim experience, so perhaps the clos- est thing in our experience to the journey of a pilgrim is rustic
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