I remember being in high school when so many things seem to weigh an enormous weight. Different people had different concerns. Maybe it was getting that grade in math class. Making the team. Being in the “in” crowd. Having name brand clothes. Oh and a day could be destroyed if someone didn’t have the right opinion of you, laughed at or ignored you. Losing the game could be a soul crushing event. 

But…

One day we left high school. We saw that there was so much more to life than a silly grade in a single class, the opinion of the popular kids, winning a football game, fitting in or [insert whatever temporal teen issue].

Beyond “High School” Thinking

It’s so easy to look at high school kids and all their worries and say, “Hey, been there. Done that. Don’t sweat it.”  Yet when it comes to our small life on earth, we can easily get just as worked up. For teens high school seems all that there is. Make or break. Be all end all. After high school is an eternity away. Teen problems can seem so magnified.  

For us this world seems as big to us as high school does to teenagers. Heaven seems like an eternity away. Instead, we focus on the here and now. What we are told we must do. What we are told is important.

Do this.

Do that.

Be successful.

What Matters to Us

We become upset about situations in our personal lives or even issues in the nation. Just ask yourself…

“500 years from now will it matter?….Really?” 

Will it matter to YOU?

Will it matter what house I had? That manager’s position at my job? Being infuriated in traffic? Whether my kids are given a castle and all the world or not? If who I thought should be in charge was in charge or not?

If we have only one life… why not live it so that what we do today DOES matter not only in 500 years from now… but in ETERNITY. 

Paul said in 2 Cor. 4:16

“16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 

-NASB 1995

Momentary Light Affliction

Paul did not seem concerned about all the things that were happening. It’s not that hardships or our concerns are not important to God. They are… BUT we must never be blinded to the eternal weight of glory. Our lives here are but a vapor. You will never “miss out” living abandoned to God. The Lord will never say to anyone, “You were too passionate for Me.” 

This is a temporal space. Whatever we are doing today should bear the weight of eternity… because in the end that is all that will matter.  

Are we distracted or are we living our lives with an eternal gaze?