Just A-Passin’ Through: Reach for the Eternal

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

Time management specialists, both sacred and secular, talk about the importance of setting goals. Goal setting is important for a variety or reasons, not the least of which is to focus your energy on a desired end. And sometimes, it's not that important to reach your goal. As the old adage says, “I’d rather shoot for the moon and miss, than shoot at nothing and hit it!”

I want to add a caveat here. Go ahead and aim high. Strive to reach your goals in life. But remember this, your time on earth is a temporary assignment. An old hymn says it well, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through.” Knowing that will radically alter the value you put on the earthly and help to fix your attention on the really important matter of the eternal. 

My Jr. Boys Sunday School teacher taught us a short poem:

Only one life, will soon be past

Only what’s done for Christ will last. 

A common error among Christ followers is to assume that God’s goals for you include prosperity, success, and power. Those are the kinds of goals that earthly-minded people shoot for. Christ’s promise of “abundant life” is not a guarantee that you will have a successful career and a fully diversified retirement portfolio. So don’t focus on those kinds of temporary “crowns.”

Paul was a faithful Christ follower who set goals. One of them included a missionary trip to Spain [see Romans 15:24-28 — it’s up for debate whether or not he achieved that goal], yet he ended up in a Roman prison. John the Baptizer was faithful too, but he was beheaded in Herod’s palace. Countless Christ followers have been martyred throughout history, many very recently. Some have come to the end of life with very little of the earth to show for it. But remember, this isn’t all there is…we’re “just a-passin’ through.”

When we come to the end of our time on earth, we’re not leaving home, we’re going home!

We fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:18