When I was five years old, my parents bought a nicer house, but I didn’t want to move. In fact, I recall sitting on the curb on moving day, grumbling loudly and tossing little rocks at the moving van. There wasn’t anything spectacular about the house we were leaving, but my universe was small and I couldn’t imagine anyplace better.
Just a few years later, a bowling alley not too far from our house caught on fire and my dad took us over on that cold winter night to watch the massive inferno. I remember how surprisingly sad I felt when I realized it was going to burn to the ground. I wasn’t an avid bowler, but I’d had some good times there with my friends and losing it seemed like a big deal at the time.
Buildings, like so many things on this earth, can certainly capture our hearts.
I thought about this a couple of months ago while watching the live coverage of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in Paris. I thought it was a terrible shame for the world to lose such an architectural wonder. But I also thought about a dear friend who has taken hundreds of students on trips to France and to that cathedral. I knew this would be a much bigger and more personal loss for her because she has invested some of her heart in that country.
I also thought about the dedicated craftsmen who, without modern tools or technology, probably invested all or most of their professional lives creating that magnificent cathedral. How sad that we were now watching the work of their hands literally go up in smoke.
But one thing that never crossed my mind while watching the cathedral fire was whether God was fretting about it. He certainly cares about all the people with ties to that church building, but as the Bible says in Acts 7:48-50, “… the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands … ‘Heaven is My throne, and earth is the footstool of My feet; what kind of house will you build for Me?’ says the Lord, ‘Or what place is there for my repose? Was it not My hand which made all these things?’”
God knows what we often forget: all the places and things in this world are temporary. We sometimes cling so tightly to them, though, because, like my grumbly 5-year-old self on that curb, we can’t imagine anything or anyplace better.
But something better, indeed, is coming. The Bible tells us that one day the heavens and earth will be burned up and God will create new ones (2 Peter 3:10-12), far more beautiful than anything we can imagine and far better than anything we may have lost.
Until then, however, we suffer painful changes and losses in this life, and they evoke hard questions. Do I truly believe what I profess—that this world isn’t all there is? Am I willing to let God pry my hands off what is temporary so my hands will be open to what is eternal?
The only sure things in this world aren’t of this world: God, His kingdom, His Word, and the eternal life He promises to all who believe in Jesus Christ. When everything else burns—and it all will—that’s what will remain.
These words of Jesus challenge me: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21).”
Lord, help me invest my heart wisely.