Since my family must move from our rental home by the end of June, we spent our holiday weekend doing work. Lots and lots of work. In fact, my lower back seems to be “telling me” that perhaps we did too much work. I know that Proverbs 16:31 says that “Gray hair is a crown of splendor” but what about my back? It must be experiencing something similar to whatever causes the grayness on my head, but I don’t know a term for an aging back. Lumbar-challenged? Vertebrae-ging? Ligament-ia?
This painful ordeal reminds me that nothing on earth lasts forever. Specifically, it confirms that I can’t take anything with me, especially not my aging, deteriorating body. The Bible has its own way of saying, “You can’t take it with you.” In 1 Timothy 6:7, we read, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” This is not a bad thing, although I sometimes try to hold on to what was never meant to be more than temporary. I really don’t want this world, or the things of this world, or this old body of mine, to last forever. And I certainly don’t want the suffering associated with this life to stay with me beyond the grave. God has something much, much better in store. As Max Lucado writes in the form of a prayer: “Father we believe that when we see you, any suffering that we endured on the face of this earth will be worth it. We believe that the first five minutes we stand in heaven we will know that anything we endured on this globe will be forgotten. Father help us to understand. And when we cannot understand, help us to trust.”
Troy Burns