Imperishable

A familiar morning sun shinning through my westward facing window woke me today & brought with it an unfamiliar question. This questions made it's presence well known as it sang over & over, 

"Why do I spend the days of my life desiring things that are perishable; things that rot, burn, decay & turn to dust?"

Our lives are flooded with perishable, fleeting, temporal things. All of which will never satisfy the innermost chambers of our heart. The clothes I wear, the homes I visit, the sun that wakes me in the morning, the moon that bids me goodnight, the feelings I have & even my very own skin will change & eventually perish. It seems so clear that to have faith placed in perishable things is not wise, yet I find I struggle with this with my every breath.

Soon after these thoughts I had a vision of-sorts. I found myself walking up to this open place, it seemed like a market or exchange but it was incredibly still & void of any other people except myself, & God was standing at a booth. I had nothing with me expect for a small wooden basket. In this basket held things that are taken from me with the wind & change as the seasons; clothes, jobs, money, friends, family, my worries & so on. As I approached the booth God asked me if I would part with all of it, one by one. I resisted for a moment, just as I have done before.

As I stepped back from the booth & tightened my grip I gained an understanding that people have been coming to this place for some time now, God's redeeming market place. God had made a place since before time where His beloved children could come hand in their brokenness & He would turn it into glory. They exchanged the perishable for the imperishable. Here God waits to fill His children's hearts with eternal & permanent things.

I could hear men, women, children & the elderly as they exchanged one life for another.They would say:

"God, I give you my feelings." 

& He gave them truth.

"God, I give you my money." 

& He gave charity & generosity.

"God, I give you my friends & family."

& He gave community & fellowship.

"God, I give you my time"

& He gave them prayer, understanding, wisdom & patience.

"God, I give you my skills & talents."

& He gave them a means of serving others.

"God, I give you my present."

& He gave them a future.

"God, I give you my past."

& He gave them healing.

"God, I give you my despair."

& He gave them hope.

"God, I give you my fear."

& He gave them love.

"God, I give you my entire life."

& He gave them eternal life.

For in this place everything that has not been purchased by God will fade, even our own bodies & minds. It is true that from dust we came & to dust we will return. But here, this very second, our hope may be fully in Jesus who came down into a perishable & broken world in order to redeem it with His imperishable blood. More often than not we need something in our lives redeemed rather than something new & redemption is only attainable in giving ourselves to God the Father through our faith in Christ. When we exchange our blindness for sight we can see that all we have was His to begin with & still is. & God's greatest gift to us was in Christ's blood, giving us an inheritance that can never perish.

The simple & true beauty in this "marketplace" is that He brings it to us in every step & every breath of our life. With every second we have an opportunity to pull out of our basket something to give to God in exchange for something lasting & good. With every second God is ready to take it all for us, to redeem our lives & let us experience a joy we could have never known without Him.