October 26, 2012
This World is Not My Home
The song This World Is Not My Home, written by Jim Reeves, is
all about heaven and I love the thoughts that come to mind when we sing this
song. However, I’m wondering if I might find even more peace and encouragement
if I were to take my focus off heaven and put it back on the world. Especially
when I’m struggling with difficult people I need to be reminded, ‘This world is not my home…’
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Gail;
-----The peace in my soul expanded immensely when I stopped viewing heaven and earth as there and here. I certainly don’t mean the concept of separate places is either irrelevant or just metaphorical. It’s more like the concept of here, there, and different place is deeply ingrained in our perception because it is absolute and concrete by the physics of this temporal world. It is hard to break away from notions deeply formed by the mere nature of our five senses being indelibly tied to those physics.
-----It was a year or two ago when I began relating to the entirety of the soul as a sandwich: one slice of bread being our physical bodies interacting only with this physical world, the other slice being our spirit interacting as much as it actually does with a spiritual existence, and our minds and emotions being the meatloaf between those two slices. As that metaphor deepened in my thinking my jaw began dropping with realization of the actual closeness God and heaven can become to us as the intermingling of His Spirit with ours effects a metamorphosis of the meatloaf into pastrami, duck, honey ham, pickles, olives, a bit of onion, a sprinkle of garlic, pepper, lettuce, chard, poupon mustard, and of course a healthy smearing of God’s Miracle Whip.
-----Now, before that sandwich hit my mind (and I wonder if it eventually came to mind because God promised Abraham offspring more numerous than sand which is on the beach,) I had spent several years pondering the wonders of Romans 14:17-19, “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; he who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.”
-----Righteousness is merely a religiosity expression for doing right. I loved the old man’s comment when Babe corralled the sheep at the big-time sheep dog show and won the grand championship. As the crowds went nuts he just stated, “That’ll do, Pig, that’ll do.” I think that way about the idea of doing right. It’s just doing right, nothing more, nothing less. That’ll do. It is righteous. And if all things are being done right, then there is a great preponderance of joy because there is no more disturbance, perturbation, or even inkling of maladjustment. There is peace because there is right. The three go so hand in hand that they become the essence of the kingdom of heaven filtering through the meatloaf turning it into delicacy.
-----Who’s to say what is right? I am one of those unusual people who can go stand behind a bush, focus for just a moment, then bend over and empty the contents of my stomach. It didn’t take me much time to heave that stupid question into the bushes. I don’t form questions into conclusions, as many fools in our society are wont to do. I draw conclusions from question’s answers. Those who are to say what is right are they who so honestly desire to do what is right that they reality test everything they do. One of the many evidences of right having been done this reality testing turns up is the resulting peacefulness effected for all parties involved. Of course, there is much more to reality testing than that. But for now, that’ll do. As we follow this kind of joyful rabbit down its ever beautifying trail, we not only experience more of what heaven is, but we also build it more into our physical surroundings. So we find ourselves more and more doing what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding.
-----Certainly heaven is a “there” to which we will be taken. But it also has an essence here inside us now, in that other slice of bread, to which if we apply our meatloaf will extract into our day and place, making them more heavenly.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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