Thinking Eternity
One of these days, people will come into my office and take away my stuff to make room for another person who would take my place. What will they think? Will any of them pause to remember, or to consider the meaning of those things?
Or about the life spent within those walls?
In all honesty. I think that seldom, if ever, will they stop to ponder or give a fleeting thought about those things that were important to me, or those things that represented my life and work.
What, if anything, in those boxes that take away what was my life, will be my legacy?
Probably nothing.
But when I look at people, when I consider people -even those who I might have never met in the flesh, yet who have at one point or another heard me speak- or those whose lives have been touched and changed by my prayers, by the message of Jesus that I preached, by the laying on off hands and whatever impartation of anointing operated on them, then I could find the elusive signs of a legacy.
Not the treasure in the room, the treasure given
No, it is not going to be found on the stuff around my desk, or the pictures on the wall, or the books and papers around my working place, or in any of my treasured memories in the walls or on the shelves -however important they were to me- but in the lives of people who by the grace given to me was I blessed to bless.
In the many things that hang around in my working place, there will also be some -or many- that speak about my pains, my hurts, or my frustrations; things that represent the efforts to move forward in God given mission and vision, and the always present opposition -sadly from foes and friends alike- for yes, there are always things that make our hearts sad, or even break. A broken heart seems to be always the lingering feeling of a minister, even a successful one.
But then, the song comes to my mind and soul:
My heart can sing when I pause to remember
A heartache here is but a stepping stone
Along a trail that’s winding always upwards
This troubled world is not my final home
But until then, my heart shall go on singing
But until then, with joy, I’ll carry on
Until my eyes behold the city
Until that day God calls me home
The things of earth will dim and lose its value
If we recall they’re borrowed for a while
And all the things of earth that cause a heart trouble
Remember there will only be a smile
In the end, in the words of Kathryn Kuhlmann: “One of these days I will stand face to face with Jesus, and I think at that moment, I will just say: Lord Jesus, I tried”
JC
