Don't get too comfortable, there's a new world coming.

Years ago this was the place of labor for a Midwestern farm family. 

"Surely every man walks about as a phantom; Surely they make an uproar for nothing; He amasses riches and does not know who will gather them." Psalm 39:6

In the winter of 1980, when I was a senior in high school, we received sad news  that my Grandma Clara from Iowa had passed away. I begged permission to accompany my parents to the funeral, even if it meant  missing school. In years past I'd always cried when we came home from visiting her in summer. But now suddenly, she was gone and I wanted to pay my final respects to her, the one I remembered knowing only from a distance.

Mom and Dad said no to that request, though afterwards they said regretted it. When they arrived home, I asked all about the service. Mom said the minister emphasized the theme: "All things come to pass."

The land Grandma labored over, now farmed by another. Her days of labor, straining over  rich Iowa soil only a memory.

 My life comes to pass before my eyes. Living with Mom these last months while we make arrangements to find a place for her, I gaze on the beauty of her place. Dad worked so hard here, but he is no longer to here to enjoy it. He amassed riches and did not know who would gather them...

I look at the beauty of her blue eyes. Soon her retirement home will be no longer be a part of our family. But it's just a "thing," and all "things" come to pass.

I hold her fragile hand. How did it get so withered and tiny?

My days of having Mom in my life are coming to pass.  One day will be my last day too, and the riches I've gathered will be given to strangers. None of it will come with me.

Only the treasure of the Word that I store in my soul will make it with me to the other side.

 We are eternal souls, and though our earth days come to pass, we will live on forever. If we have Jesus in our life and in our thoughts, the best is yet to come.  C.S. Lewis said:

"There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind."

Time dragged when I was little, I thought I'd never grow up. I wanted my parents to live forever, I dreaded saying good byes. 

Now each day just melts into the next. One moment we celebrate, a family together.  Next thing it's a year later, a decade later, a lifetime later.The older I get, the more "goodbyes," the more life changes.

Life on this  broken, fallen sphere is filled with breath-taking moments, but something much, much better is coming. No matter the awe of this world, it's thoroughly contaminated with the plague of sin, death and destruction. Magnificent wonder is God's creation, yet a cry of despair when humanity touches it, ruining it.

Things aren't yet what they should be, the way God wants them to be.

Life is nothing, nothing, compared to what God has in store for us when He recreates the New Heavens and New Earth. In His mind, we're already there. 

We are just travelling through here, so let's not get too comfortable.

One day new life will dawn. God Himself will wipe the tears from our eyes.