Packing for Eternity
Trust. Faith. Obedience. God has recently shown me that these are the only ways to be prepared. I can’t try to learn and experience every single thin. Nor can I decide to pack every article within reach so that I might be prepared only to get there and find out I had planned for a beach, but in reality, I’m in the mountains. The one who created us, though...now that’s a different story. He knows what we need for tomorrow, next year, and eternity. He knows that working with small children today is preparing us with the gifts of experiencing child like faith, seeing Him in everything around us and loving blindly. He knows that experiencing the pain and sorrow that life has brought is preparing us to be on the welcoming committee of Heaven for the newcomers. Still shocked they got in and excited to meet a familiar spirit. Potentially, the hard work you have endured throughout your life, is preparing for the beauty of rest He will offer you when you are in His presence. I don’t know all the possibilities. We can rest assured that demanding it be a certain way right now, or refusing to do any preparation, or refusing to acknowledge He even exists, will not stop the trip from happening; those things can, however, keep us from being prepared for it.
Exciting to me is the fact that we don’t have to run around guessing at what to prepare. He lights the next step we need to take and if you feel stuck and can’t see the next step, then it’s because He is still using you right where you are, not ready for you to move yet.
I wrote in my journal about 3:00 this morning “every day should be lived in preparation for His coming and what lies beyond.” It dawned on me how every day is just about preparing ourselves and others. Why do we get wrapped up in all the rest when being ready for Heaven is the focus? Emotions, addictions, drama, etc. are all just distractions to preparing. Those things slow us down. But time doesn’t slow down. In eternity, our excuses for being delayed in our preparations will do us no good. And it’s not about fear of punishment, but what will we be ill prepared for when we get there? We should have a sense of excitement! Like packing for that trip someone surprised you with.
The good thing is, we don’t have to “pack” or prepare with no idea. Being in His will, God directs us what to “pack” or prepare for so that when we get there, we have everything we need and have experienced everything we should have. And it will be perfect.
Picture someone you love and trust dearly comes up to you: “Surprise! I’ve planned an all expenses paid trip for us and we will leave tomorrow for an entire month! Where we are going and what we will do is a secret! So just relax and I will pick you up in the morning!”
What would you do? How would you pack? Or would you pack? What would you take with you? Would you question them for more details? Accept the trip? Be stressed out? Excited? Would you be upset that they didn’t consult you first? Don’t they know you have plans? Do they expect you to just cancel everything? Are you the person who would willingly accept and go along with the excitement of it all because you don’t need every moment planned out?
I think we do this with life. Sometimes we omit the element of surprise by demanding to know and have every aspect planned. There are those of uswho go through without a care in the world and just accept whatever comes our way. An exciting trip is planned for us soon and we do not know what we will need to live our new life. What skills will we need? What current experiences has this existence prepared us for that will need next? How do we prepare if we don’t know the answers?
