![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
klsiegel320Point to Ponder: This world is not my home.
Verse to Remember: So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. ---2 Corinthians 4:18 (NSV)
Question to Consider: How should the fact that life on earth is just a temporary assignment change the way I am living right now?
Interesting question. I think the main way in which I forget this is in worrying about stuff, in all its permutations: whether I'll be able to keep making as much as I am now, whether we'll be able to move to a larger apartment, whether we'll be able to keep living as we have; whether we'll be able to afford the things we need (or the things we want).
When I can let go of that, when I can remember that all of those external things don't mean as much as the Reality of God and God's care for us...I worry less.
I also recall that this was the argument used to try to persuade oppressed peasants on medieval fiefs to submit to their hard, harsh life without complaining or trying to improve things, because their reward was waiting for them in heaven. That, I think, is not a good use of the idea that this life is a temporary assignment.
It also means that it is our only opportunity to do whatever it is we can do here: love, live...enjoy the world God has made. It means life is too short to hold grudges, to be petty or mean or small, to fail to be the best "us" we can be.
Verse to Remember: So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. ---2 Corinthians 4:18 (NSV)
Question to Consider: How should the fact that life on earth is just a temporary assignment change the way I am living right now?
Interesting question. I think the main way in which I forget this is in worrying about stuff, in all its permutations: whether I'll be able to keep making as much as I am now, whether we'll be able to move to a larger apartment, whether we'll be able to keep living as we have; whether we'll be able to afford the things we need (or the things we want).
When I can let go of that, when I can remember that all of those external things don't mean as much as the Reality of God and God's care for us...I worry less.
I also recall that this was the argument used to try to persuade oppressed peasants on medieval fiefs to submit to their hard, harsh life without complaining or trying to improve things, because their reward was waiting for them in heaven. That, I think, is not a good use of the idea that this life is a temporary assignment.
It also means that it is our only opportunity to do whatever it is we can do here: love, live...enjoy the world God has made. It means life is too short to hold grudges, to be petty or mean or small, to fail to be the best "us" we can be.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Chapter Six
Date: 2003-03-27 10:32 am (UTC)TEV: "I am here on earth for just a little while."
RSV: "I am a sojourner on earth . . ."
I see that TEV is the Good News version; I own a Good News Bible and found it quite useful when I was a new Christian. I think the easier language has a place for younger people, or for people who don't have a high degree of literacy in English.
Re: temporary assignment: I could use this knowledge as a comfort -- that there is a place where I belong even more than I belong where I am right now. It's OK to feel like an alien sometimes, because in this way, I am. If I could remember it in times of sadness, perhaps it would light a candle of hope in the darkness.
Re: life is too short to hold grudges, etc. -- I definitely agree. Too short not to love one another and tell each other so. My sisters and I always, always say "I love you" when we get off the phone. Much love to you, dear friend.
Re: Chapter Six
Date: 2003-03-28 06:08 am (UTC)Bearing in mind, also, that the King James is gorgeous but just as wrong in many places. For example, the Hebrew word that is most commonly translated "virgin" does not mean "woman who has never had sex." It means "young woman." Period. The implication may be that if she's young and unmarried, she has never had sex. But the word itself doesn't say young and unmarried. It just says "young" and "female." Which sort of makes a vast difference in how you read certain things...
And much love back to you, sweetie. I've been thinking as I read the chapters on fellowship that the author is a bit limited in his estimation of how fellowship grows; he seems to think geography matters. It does somewhat, I suppose, but...not as much as I think he thinks it does.
kls