By: Blair Browning
A few weeks ago, my family and I snuggled together on the bed near the window and watched as the house next door was demolished. It rained steadily on that bitter cold day as we watched for the better part of an hour, our warm breath fogging up the cold window our five year old frantically wiped clean, so as not to miss a single moment. And as steadily as the rain fell, a sadness, deep and cold, crept into my heart.
Our neighbor had recently sold her childhood home, unlisted and unexpected and unknown, to a housing developer, just after installing a new roof earlier in the spring. She never thought they would tear it down, this home her father originally purchased new in 1926, the home she grew up in, came back to, helped her father die in and lived her older years with her family. She never imagined they would tear down almost 90 years of story. But over the course of a couple of days, we watched, as the home was laid flat while curtains still hung in the windows.
That deep, cold sadness overwhelmed me, and I was struck with the words of James, not new but dusty in the attic of my mind:
You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. (James 4:14)
Surrounded by the fleeting, the fading, and the broken, we may find our flesh frantically grasping at the breaths of this life, to hold tight to and make permanent the treasures of today. But one cannot hold a breath in one’s hands, and oftentimes the seeming hopelessness of this living bears heavy. The word of God sharpens our focus and rights our perspective when scripture tells us, as believers, we are not of this world, our “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). But this side of heaven, circumstances and situations can muddy our view and we cry out for a comfort, here and now. Amid the hurry and fear and panic of this fallen world, our hearts whisper in anticipation, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
God answered with Immanuel. God with us. Jesus Christ humbly came down to our level as the greatest gift, and then he did the greatest thing that will ever be done. There is no destruction, there is no hopelessness, there is no situation greater than the gifted grace of our Savior. He has come. And he will again.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3:20)
City Church Stories 