2 Corinthians 4:16 - 5:5
Just a Tent

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling--if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

New Revised Standard Version

I miss the tree that stood outside the window of my study. Some of this is pragmatic: the room was cooler when the window was shaded from the morning Florida sun. But it's also emotional--I am sad to think it no longer grows out in the yard. Several times a day, I have glanced out that window, forgetting I won't see its leaves backlit in sunlight, and I don't like remembering that it is gone.

My emotional response to losing this tree frustrates me! There are so many in this area that have lost far more than a shade tree--people whose cars were crushed by trees, whose roofs still leak in the afternoon showers, whose house interiors have water damage. There are friends of mine who are facing financial struggles, even with what they anticipate their insurance companies will pay. There are friends of mine who had been going through deep valleys of despair and struggle before a hurricane created even more disruption. All I lost was a tree... but it still hurts.

When Paul wrote the passage above to the church in Corinth, they all lived in great danger of economic ostracism, or worse, for being Christian. Paul's encouragement reminds them that putting up with struggles in the temporal world is repaid many, many times over in the home that God has prepared for us. This world, this earthly tent, is not our home!

What Paul wrote as encouragement to early Christians can also be an encouragement to us today, for whenever we face struggles, suffer losses, and cope with how unfair the world can be to us when we live out our faith, we have the same promise of our heavenly home.

But, we also ought to consider the warning written between the lines of Paul's letter. I rarely find myself persecuted today; instead, I am quite comfortable and secure, even when I speak of my beliefs and share messages of God's love with others.

I am in far greater danger of being too comfortable with this world, and in doing so, losing my urgency in preparing for heaven. I found I had quite a fondness for that one tree, and I need to ponder if my love for the created sometimes was substituted for my love for the Creator. I try to keep my body in shape, working at staying on a diet and regularly taking the medicine that will make me healthier, but I need to remember that my body is only temporary, and my soul needs nourishing and care, too. I have been blessed with health, home, family, and an abundance of possessions, but all this will be gone some day. Will I focus on the earthly blessings, or focus on the eternal blessings?

Am I ready, as Paul was, to move out of my earth-bound tent and into the heavenly home God has prepared? Will I remember that everything I see around me now is nothing more than a tent?