A Temporary Tent and an Eternal Heart
After getting out of the shower, I was thinking again about how relatively temporary our bodies are. I have lived in this body a long time, grown used to its quirks, and watched it change.
Scripture compares the body to a tent (2 Corinthians 5:1, 2 Peter 1:13-14). I also thought of comparing it to a modern-day car. Many of us remember cars from our past, or houses we grew up in or stayed in for a season of life. Some of those places seem better than what we have now, and others leave us thankful for what we have compared with what we had before. Our bodies can change in a similar way. We may be thankful for what we have now, or wish we still had what we had in the past. For some of us the body stays relatively the same for most of life, like people who grow up in their parents' house, inherit it when their parents pass away, and keep living there with little ever changing.
Then I thought of how much time we tend to spend caring for this body that is housing our spirit right now. This life is truly short compared with the eternity that follows. We should not make it our focus to keep this body lasting as though it must be perfect forever, or as though it is what we will carry into the next stage.
For those of us who have been Christians a long time, this is not a new revelation, but it is a good reminder. Anytime you are taking care of yourself, whether in the shower, recovering from an injury, trying to get in better health, losing (or gaining) weight, cutting body fat or increasing muscle mass, or doing something else that helps the body perform better or last longer, all of that is relatively temporary. We want good health in this life so we can do God's will effectively. Yet it will not matter in the end if we made perfect care of the body or avoiding injury the focus of our lives. Those things will seem pointless, and we will wonder why we occupied ourselves with them so much. It's just a temporary tent, not intended to last forever.
This life is geared so much toward the next: refining our spirit, purifying the heart in its desires, and helping it become unhindered by weights that weigh it down (Hebrews 12:1). The body, and the care of the body, can almost become a weight, even though we have to carry it through this life. I often remember a prophecy the Holy Spirit gave me to share in my church many years ago; it was about living in a tent and one of the lines was that after this was life was over, "we wouldn't really remember much about it or even its color." Right after I spoke that from Him, I realized He was referring to our skin! Just consider how much of life revolves around that concept, for so many people around the world. For others it might be gender, hair color, body shape, eye color, height, or even all kinds of other kind of classifications humans have devised for themselves.
Part of life with God on this current plane of existence, while we are still in the flesh, is about whether we will do what He says: even if it seemingly would cause temporary pain, distress, or injury, just as we see throughout Scripture. Even if it means we experience fear of the unknown in the flesh. the natural reactions, effects, and states of the body are all temporary. They are like the house we grew up in, our first car, our first bicycle, or our first skateboard; something we used to travel or live in that symbolizes our body, our house, our current tent. It is all just so temporary. Like Jesus says, it's better to enter life with one hand (the other lost, to avoid temptation) than spend eternity in hell away from God's presence (Matthew 5:30, Mark 9:43). Where is our heart? What do we prize? Do we consider our temporary body more valuable than obeying God and our future home in and with Him? Jesus said clearly, wherever our heart was, there would be our treasure (Matthew 6:21, Luke 12:34).
So focus on what is going to last forever: the hidden man of the heart (1 Peter 3:4), who will be clothed with something new that God creates based on what you are doing for Him right now, as Paul says (2 Corinthians 5:1-4). If you're reading or hearing this message, then you still have time left!