People
The other night I was driving home alone from Wal-Mart when I heard some Bible verses being read on New Life 91.9. I can't recall what they were but they spoke of the passing away of temporal things and nothing being left but the eternal. I heard this just as I was driving into our housing development or what will soon be our former one. As I passed house by house, I thought about how much we value our house and how hard it is leaving it. Then, the passage I just heard came to mind and as I looked around, the only thing I could see that was eternal, the only thing that was going to last forever, was me. No house, no tree, no truck, no car, no mailbox, no satellite dish, no irrigation system, no contoured yard… nothing… nothing but a person. People are the only things that are here that will last forever. (not including the unseen supernatural world around us) It put me in a position to assess what I truly value in this life. Is it my laptop? Is it my TempurPedic king size bed? Is it my programmable thermostat? Is it my rose garden? Is it my digital SLR camera? That seems to be the case, but in light of what I just heard God say (in the Bible passage), those values are useless and in vain as every single one of those things won't be around forever. Most of them won't even be around for another decade or two. What about the people in my life? What about the people in a foreign land to whom God is sending us? What about them? How much do I value them? How much do I pray for them and think about them instead of getting the website up-to-date, mowing my grass with sleek landscaping-style lines, or searching online for satellite tv options for the RV? The sad answer is not much at all, if any. People are eternal. Our friends. Our family. Our supporters. Our people group who will be reached with the audio-visual creations God will bless us in making. It is people that matter. That's God's viewpoint and I hope to make it mine.
