Today we are moving our church offices to the new Chapel on the Cross Schools campus. As I sit at my desk surrounded by boxes, I feel thankful for this historic structure called “Seven Oaks.” There was not a day in the last five years where I did not feel incredibly blessed working in such a beautiful dwelling. It is easy to get attached to such places, because it at least partially satisfies that eternal desire for the perfect place to live. However, we can never make these places more important than they are, they are just buildings. It reminds me of what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory.
“[These things] in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
No matter how beautiful a place may be it only temporarily quenches an eternal thirst. The purpose of beauty is not the thing itself but the creator behind it. Appreciate, respect, and feel blessed by the earthly beauty while always remembering this is not our true home. Hold the things of this world loosely because we have no enduring city here. 500 years from now these objects will mean very little because we will reside in the place we have longed for our entire lives.
Abraham (and his decedents) were confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God… they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland… For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.
Glorify God & Enjoy Him Forever!
