The Preacher's Pen

I've just completed one of the longest weeks of my life. Everything that could possibly be due, need to be done, or demand my attention called on me for completion this week. If I listed everything that I had to do in the last seven days it would take up all the space for this article! Truthfully, sometimes I didn't think I'd get it all done, or live through all the deadlines and pressure. But I did.

And I learned something about heaven.

First, I realized how we need to live as Christians in short bursts. I ran around at a hundred miles an hour this last week, and honestly, I couldn't live like that all the time. But I was able to do it for a short time, in one short burst. Is it possible that we fail as Christians because we are trying to live a whole lifetime of Christianity at once? Jesus said "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matthew 6:34). It boggles my mind to think of all the worship services I'll attend, all the sermons I'll preach, all the articles I'll write in a lifetime. I can't do all of that right now but I don't have to. I just need to do right today. That's enough.

Second, I came to understand that often we can do much more than we think we can if we have to. Several scheduling conflicts led to a number of extremely important items being piled into one week for me. I had no choice: it all had to be done. And so I did it. It wasn't easy, but I knew it had to be done and just got busy doing it. Isn't that true about heaven? It really doesn't matter what it takes to get there we've got to do it. The alternative is unthinkable. It may be tough or hard or require great sacrifices but none of that really matters. It must be done, we must reach that goal, so let's get on with it. We can do what we have to do, especially with God's help (Phil. 4:19).

Going to heaven is much more important than any other project you or I are working on. Let's give some attention this week to making sure we get there.

P.S. This article is the last thing I had to do this week. I'm done and it feels great!