Getting old and preparing

It is funny how something you read can trigger the most interesting thoughts in your mind. Reading my daily devotion, it compared our bodies here on earth to the skin of a cicada that we start to see as the summer winds down. The cicada sheds its skin to move on to better and greater things.

We too will shed our skin and move on to a greater place, our heavenly home.

This got me thinking about getting older, feeling more aches and pains, not being able to physically do the things I was able to in my teens and twenties (okay and thirties as well). It reminded me of the sharp pains, the dull pains, and also of the pain my wife has been living with for a while now in her back.

I wonder if it is God helping us to realize our mortality here on earth, helping us to prepare for our departure from our earthly home to take our spot in heaven. Some in my family might say to stop thinking about that, but I think more and more about what I will experience when I leave this earth and what I will leave behind.

Now I am not advocating my early death. Just as we don't know when Jesus will return and we must prepare for His return, so must we always prepare for our own death. Will we be ready to enter God's kingdom? I have seen it way to often to think that I may be immune to an early death. And what exactly constitutes and early death these days? It seems the average lifespan has increased, but I do not know whether God's plan for me will include many years on earth, or just enough to get my kids on the right track. I do know that reading about heaven and hell I know exactly where I want to be, and I know exactly how to get there. For I know that Jesus died for me and that through Him God sees me as perfect, no matter how much I mess up here on earth.

Rejoice in the knowledge of everlasting life with God. Do not fret over aches and pains here on earth, but instead look at them as increasing your desire to shed this human body and live forever in heaven, awaiting the last day when you will receive your perfect body.

"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands." 2 Corinthians 5:1

God Bless your Wednesday.