Sunday, April 18, 2010

Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea

Few people understand what I do. Cramming a life into a suitcase and then transplanting it thousands of miles away for an undetermined amount of time seems...

irrational.

Why leave behind a home and family and friends? Why abandon the shrinking possibility of a husband and children? People all over the world would give their right arms to have just a portion of my upbringing, so why throw it all away to be part of a culture in which I will forever be marked as an outsider? Sure, go...travel...explore. Just don't live there.


But that's not what He says. He says:

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Blessed are the feet of those who bring good news.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens [with a holy people].




We – you and I – are living on the edge of existence as we know it. I believe that it is entirely possible for that “twinkling of an eye” to happen within my lifetime, maybe even before I have a chance to grow old and weary. To think of it quickens my heart rate:

That I may not die.

That I may not even finish this essay before the trumpet sounds and I pierce the cloudy dusty skies of this city in my ascension with the saints.


If I adopt this as reality, then I have no time to waste, and giving up the momentary pleasures of the life I knew becomes a forfeit worth it all just to hear Him say:

Well done, good and faithful servant.



*inspired by http://www.davidjeremiah.org/site/radio.aspx*