Losing a loved one, a friend, a job, or our health can be destabilizing, even a slight change in our routine can be challenging. What does it take to disorient us and send us into a tailspin? When our world begins to collapse do we become fearful, lost? Do we lose our faith in God? in Life itself?
To the degree we draw our sense of well-being from this world, the more losing it will cripple us. Trying to draw life from non-life-giving sources is a dead end.
The truth is, even now we don’t have any of these temporal things we think we have; our possessions, relationships, health, occupation, our whole world is passing away. (1Jn 2:17) We came into this world with nothing, and we won’t take any of it with us when we leave. (1Ti 6:7) What we have the moment after we die is all we really have now.
This is troubling if we’re looking for life and love like most everyone else, minding earthly things (Php 3:18-19), defining life in the context of earthly experience … building houses on the sand. (Mt 7:26-27)
When Christ becomes our Life (Co 3:4) our sense of well-being is grounded in Him; our foundation doesn’t collapse when our temporal world falls apart because we’ve built our house on the Rock. (Mt 7:24-25) Our life down here is a vapor (Ja 4:14); our treasure isn’t here, it’s in Him. (Mt 6:19-21)
In this world we will have tribulation, and that’s OK. (Jn 16:33) We who are already dead in Christ, our life is hid with Him in God (Co 3:1), and we will live with Him. (2Ti 2:11) Our lives are living sacrifices for Him to do with as He pleases. (Ro 12:1) To live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Php 1:21)