Packing up for Heaven

How many of you would be ready, by tomorrow morning, to walk out of your house in order to move – with all that is important to you – to a new home?

Packing up to leave the North and come to Walvis Bay was hard work.

I was not just packing up a home for a family of 4; there were also 2 offices (as we both work from home) and a school room (with 100s of books) !!

But it was easier than when we left on home assignment at the end of 2008. Not knowing if we would get a visa renewal to come back, I had to look at each book, each slip of paper, each article of clothing … and decide whether it mattered if I never saw it again.

I had 3 piles: what to ‘keep’, what to ‘give away’ …and what to throw away.

I am a ‘what if …’ person:

• “What if our things get stolen or the garage floods and destroys everything I want to keep?”
• “What if David dies on this long trip away and I have to pack up our life on my own?”

You know the kind of thing - I am sure I am not alone in the world! (It does has some benefits in that, when we go away, I am always prepared for every contingency!!)

So, knowing my propensity to stress in this way, I put up a Bible verse to help me put things into their proper perspective.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. (Psalm 119.37)

And I thought of Jesus, and his Return.

Unlike moving house, we will have no warning of our departure for heaven.

My ‘precious possessions’ will then be consigned to moth and rust anyway.

I was putting into boxes things I wanted, in this life, to keep.But I wondered what would be in my ‘to keep to show Jesus’ “boxes”?

After packing up the house, I was amazed at home much rubbish I had accumulated.

And I think it is the same in my own life – too much time spent doing things that, upon Jesus’ return, will be classified as worthless, and too little time expended pursuing things that are of eternal value.

If you had to pack up your life for heaven and be ready by tomorrow morning, would your ‘boxes’ of serving and giving be as full as you would like?

When you pray for missionaries, when you pray for each other, I think this is a vital prayer request.

I feel more inadequate for the job we are doing in Namibia than when we first came out there as I am aware that the desert is more than the landscape, it is also sometimes in me.