I have been thinking about the dichotomy of time and eternity these days. Maybe that's natural as we get older with more experience and years added to life.
I was looking through some images I captured during a trip to Italy years ago. It seems like yesterday. This image was especially important to me. I remember the day my husband and I were walking down a road in Fiesole, Italy. We both stopped at the same time as we saw "Ristorante La Reggia" as we remembered it many, many years earlier. There it is! That place where we enjoyed one of the most amazing meals with a spectacular view of Florence. It was as though we were transported back in time many years earlier when we had enjoyed our first ever trip to the Tuscan countryside. I had ordered carpaccio at this restaurant, not realizing that the meat was not cooked. I thought the waiter had said "rolled meat" but he actually was saying "raw meat." The whole experience is so funny to us even now. Could it really have been decades ago?
I just recently read about an experience that was a life-changer for Amy Carmichael who was a missionary in India. She was also the founder of Dohnavur Fellowship, a place of protection for young girls rescued from temple prostitution. When Amy first came to know the Lord, she was convicted by Him that the things of this world are "wood, hay, and stubble" and that the things of God are eternal (1 Corinthians 3:12, 14). She came to the conclusion that "nothing is important but that which is eternal" (Read more of this story in Found Faithful by Elizabeth Skoglund). And when you read about Amy's life, she truly lived for eternal things.
I look at this image from Italy and realize just how fleeting time really is. I am on my way home to heaven. I am meant for eternity. God has set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
And yet, we are living in the fading, temporal years of time. How are we then to live? Paul dealt with this issue in his letter to the Colossians —
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
Colossians 3:1-4 NLT
When I read these words, I have to ask myself, "What am I looking at all the time and what do I think about all the time — the things of heaven or the things of earth?"
Yes, I am living in the confines of time right now, but time is fleeting, and eternity is forever. When I open the pages of God's Word and I commune with God, I have a window into the things of heaven. The more I look through that window, the more heaven has a hold on my heart, and the things of earth loosen their grip on me.
So today, dear friend, may you think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. When you do, you will experience the peace and joy of the Lord even in the midst of impossibilities of this temporal life.
Dear Lord, Thank You for the hope of eternity and heaven as we live our years here on earth. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Blessings ♡ Grace
