Our Eternal House – by Greg Albrecht
Friend and Partner Letter from September 2024:
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile, we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling… and we would prefer to be away from the body and present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:1-2, 8).
When I turned 50, along with nearly everyone else my age in these United States, I started receiving literature from the AARP (American Association for Retired Persons). I was surprised – to be honest, I was offended. What? My 50th birthday meant I needed help crossing the street?
One of my rude awakenings to the reality I was getting old(er) happened some time ago when Karen and I walked up to buy tickets at a movie theatre. The teenager who was selling tickets looked at us and asked me if we needed one adult and one senior.
I immediately felt compelled to come to my wife’s defense. How dare this young lady think my wife was a senior! But a second later, I realized that I was the senior to whom the teenager was offering a discount. I bit my tongue, swallowed my pride, and accepted her gracious offer! Old age has its benefits and bargains! Accept the discount – even if it hurts!!
Laughter is really the best medicine, is it not? Compared with so many, I have nothing to complain about, I am thankful and blessed in many ways, including my health. However, as my family urges me, I am trying to stay away from ladders, be cautious while driving and more aware of traffic when my wife and I are walking around our neighborhood.
A friend of mine who is about my age told me he started to know he was getting older when he was reading a book to Emma, his five-year-old granddaughter. Sitting on his lap, she looked deeply into his eyes, touched his wrinkled face and asked him, “Did God make you Grandpa?”
“Yes, honey, God made me a long time ago.” Emma said, “Well, I don’t look and feel like you! Did God make me too?”
“Yes honey, he made you but he only made you just a few years ago.” Emma digested that information for a minute or so and then she replied, “Well, it looks like God’s getting better at making people isn’t he?”
There’s an old story about a hiker in a remote area, not having seen another human or a single thing made by a human being all day when suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, he found himself in a clearing and there was an old cabin.
An old(er) lady was sitting on the porch on a rocking chair. Stopping to say hello and attempting to initiate a conversation he asked her, “Have you lived here all your life?” She said, “Not yet,”
As senior citizens, we may still accomplish a great deal, because we are not dead yet!
Here are three thoughts and observations about Christ-centered aging:
1) God is not finished with us! We can STOP and LOOK and LISTEN!
We can stop, look and listen for ways we can serve others. While your circumstances may be difficult, and while you may be in either or both physical and emotional pain, “in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4).
God is never finished with us – he is always teaching us, forming and shaping us into new men and women, transforming us into his very own new creation in Christ. He is always, in Christ, working in us so that we may serve others!
We hear so many inspiring stories about how so many of you serve others in the name of Christ. Thank you for doing so! We are not dead yet! We have, as Robert Frost said, miles to go before we sleep! There are many ways we can impact lives in service to Jesus.
Perhaps you can volunteer as a school-crossing guard, or as a tutor in an elementary school, or help at your local senior citizen’s center. Perhaps you have a neighbor for whom you can pick up groceries. You can offer a hand, a smile, a phone call. You can send a card of friendship and appreciation. You can offer your prayers for those in need.
2) Set Your Mind on Christ. Focus on God’s House… Not Your Earthly Surroundings.Â
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things (Colossians 3:1-2).
Hebrews 11 is the “faith chapter” – it speaks of the faith of Old Testament men and women who lived in “tents” and temporary dwellings here on earth all the while looking forward to “a better country – a heavenly one” (vs. 16). Walking in Christ means looking forward in faith to a better place, a better country, a heavenly one.
It’s so easy for all of us, as we age, to feel unwanted, unappreciated and even alienated from the younger generation(s). It is tempting, as we age, to become grumpy, hostile, embittered and even angry at the world at large. It is so easy to allow the world and all of its problems to envelop, surround and absorb our attention, taking away our focus from Jesus Christ.
As a senior it is so easy to look around and see the world has changed dramatically, and so easy to focus on the changes that seem to be taking our society in the wrong direction, neglecting to ponder the changes that have been positive and uplifting. As we age it is easy to become cynical, skeptical, suspicious and pessimistic.
Focus on the beautiful, the positive, the uplifting, the eternal – there is a better world coming! Your eternal house is God’s home in heaven! Though our bodies are aging and though they are fading away, we “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
3) Rest in Christ – Focus on the Road Ahead – LOOK FORWARD to Eternity!
In most cases, getting old(er) means being relieved from many of the pressures of life we once experienced. Some of the blessings of growing older center around the diminished pressure to work 40 or more hours a week, and in many cases, the emotional and physical energy needed in parenting children (and even, in some cases, parenting grandchildren, as some of you do) and preparing them for their transition into the adult world.
Relieved of such pressures and responsibilities we have more time to see and observe the beauty of God’s creation, watching sunsets and even, for those who rise early enough, sunrises. These are timeless moments of physical and spiritual rest – perhaps we could also call them “time-free” moments as we are not as enslaved as we once were to the taskmaster that time can be.
We have more time to think about eternity, and realize that eternity is better than what we are experiencing right now! Eternity lies on the other side of the door we will pass through when we pass from this side of eternity to the other. Eternity on the other side is a “time” when time no longer exists – no more clocks, no more mortality limiting us to a period of “time” during which we are alive.
In this lifetime the clock is always ticking. There’s always an appointment to keep, traffic to battle, tests and scans to be taken and then the long wait for results. Cars must be washed and serviced, clothing must be washed and ironed, beds must be made and changed, meals must be prepared and dishes must be cleaned.
When we are with God, in his house, forever – when we inhabit eternity – we will no longer be harried or hurried by the constraints of time. During this lifetime, there is never enough time. We are always amazed by how fast time goes, or how slowly, or how much of it is gone. We always want and desire more time – in God’s eternal kingdom time will be no more, we will inherit and inhabit eternity, without the pressures of time and mortality. We will be home in our heavenly dwelling, in our immoral, resurrected body, a new creation of God!
Until next month, my dear friends, I thank you for all you do as you support this ongoing ministry – you are, no matter your age or your circumstances, as a CWR/PTM Friend and Partner, MAKING A REAL AND LASTING DIFFERENCE FOR NOW, IN THIS TIME, AND FOR ETERNITY!
Our heavenly Father,
No matter the circumstances we encounter as we age, and no matter the obstacles, regardless of the health challenges we endure, we remain your precious children. More than that, we continue, by your grace, to mature in Christ, and thus the life of our risen Lord in us enables us to age grace-fully. As time and the aging process has its way with us, we are comforted knowing that you are having your way with us too. The new creation you are forming and fashioning in us will last for all eternity. Thank you for your love and your assurance.
Your brother in Christ,
Greg Albrecht
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