“I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” Ps 23:6 NLT
“There is a discomfort of disconnection when a person lives apart from God, and knows it.”
My thoughts today are about “forever.”
We are such slaves of time that we cannot really envision forever. Forever seems an exaggeration, an impossibility. Everything that we know has an end. The clock and calendar rule our daily lives, but the Bible encourages awareness of the limits of time. “Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.” Psalm 90:12 Living Bible. That is the case for now; everything has a life span – “a time to be born and a time to die.” Ecclesiastes 3:2 NIV. But that will not always be your reality. God has so much more for you, and what He has will be forever!
Have you read about the American Monarch Butterfly, maybe one of the most beautiful of its kind? Because they cannot survive the cold, they migrate up to 2,500 miles each year, south or west for their warm, winter hibernation. From east of the Rocky Mountains, they migrate south to Mexico. From west of the Rockies, they migrate every year to Pacific Grove, CA. When they migrate, oddly enough they return to the same California Eucalyptus trees each and every year, even though they are the fourth generation of the previous year’s Monarchs.
God has put a “permanent, eternal address” inside you to guide you home as well. You and I were born for eternity not for time, for fellowship not separation from God. Solomon understood this when he wrote, “God has planted eternity in the human heart.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT. That is why there is a discomfort of disconnection when a person is apart from God and knows it. Can you even imagine what it would be like apart from the Source of life forever?
There is a “permanent, eternal address” that God placed in every human spirit, drawing the soul homeward, just as the Monarch Butterflies instinctively return to Pacific Grove, or geese migrate south each winter, or salmon swim upstream to spawn where they were hatched, or swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, CA, each March from Argentina, returning in October.
The Bible contrasts two kinds of people – those who know the Lord and those who do not – “All (some) think about is this life here on earth. But we are citizens of Heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for Him to return as our Savior. He will take these weak mortal bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like His own, using the same mighty power that He will use to conquer everything everywhere.” Philippians 3:19-21 NLT. Which do you want to describe you?
I love this quote; “The greatest calamity is not to feel far from home when you are, but to feel right at home when you’re not.” In the human spirit is a God-placed, spiritual knowledge that this world is not your final home. Stop acting like it is, settling in and making plans as though it were. Home is where you will truly experience what forever is all about!
David said, “The Lord is my Shepherd . . I will live in the house of the Lord forever!” David did not think of “the house of the Lord” so much as a specific place; he longingly spoke of that as a special presence – “In My Father’s house . . I go to prepare a place for you . . and I will receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also.” John 14:1-3. See Psalm 27:3-4 NIV. You will be forever with God!
My prayer for you today is that you value what is forever more than what is for now.