More on Heartland

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I started a new journal today. It's kind of like a new beginning--a clean page in front of me.  What will I do with it?

 

As I hinted in yesterday's post, I've been feeling a tad uncomfortable with how comfortable I've been feeling in the fictional world of Heartland.*  My thoughts have been more with Ty and Amy lately than with my own friends and family.  It's been a great escape. But I know I can't stay in that unreal, ideal world. I need to live in the real, broken world that God has put me in.

  

*That's a palindrome, did you notice? 

 

I read Jesus' words this morning, in Matthew 24 and 25, about the end of the world as we know it. He gave His disciples a parable to illustrate how they should live until He returns to gather His children home to His heartland.

 

Ten young woman are waiting to celebrate the wedding of their friend, the bride, and her bridegroom. They know the bridegroom will be coming any time to meet the bride and carry her away into their new life together. They need to be watching for him so they can join the two of them in a happy journey to the wedding feast.

 

Five of them are alert and prepared, and the other five have been spending their days watching endless episodes of Heartland.

 

Okay. So that's a bit of a stretch when it comes to interpretation, but it's an apropos  application to my situation. I cannot afford to float off into some kind of virtual paradise, napping mindlessly while I wait for the Bridegroom to decide it's time to come collect His bride.  There is work to do before I can relax and enjoy the feast. So today, in the first entry of my new journal, I turn over a new page.

 

I am highly motivated. I'm pretty sure it's more than the cup and a half of coffee I just drank. There are some pretty strong reasons for me to renounce the easy life until I can enjoy it eternally.

 

For one thing, that life is temporary. It doesn't make sense for me to invest my life in pursuits that will only last a short time. Another of Jesus' stories illustrates the futility of doing that. He says, "What profit is there for a person to gain the whole (temporary) world if they lose their own (eternal) souls in the process?"

 

Or if other eternal souls are lost as well??

 

I need to invest my life in people. Real people. People are the only eternally valuable investments to make.  I need to work toward their eternal well being as well as my own. 

 

C.S. Lewis says that ". . .it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit--." Ty and Amy are not immortals, but the people I come in contact with in my life are. They need to be the focus of my activities while I am down here on earth waiting for the Bridegroom to come for us.

I need to spend my life for others, praying for them, loving them, and demonstrating, by the way I live and the words I speak, how rich and joyous it can be to live for an eternal purpose, moving all the while toward an eternal heartland.

 

So that's the beginning of my future path. It's a re-commitment to my purpose of following Jesus in this life. I need to make sure my heart stays in this land until it's time to move on to the next one.

 

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