Living as long as I have in a wheelchair, I'll admit that, well – I’ve been thinking a lot lately about heaven, about going home, about departing to be with the Lord. Please don’t get me wrong though – I'm in perfect health and I don’t mind my paralysis. But I’ve lived with quadriplegia for 40 years now, and living in a wheelchair that long, well, sometimes I wonder how much more time I have on earth before I get the call from the Lord to come home.
But I can’t let my thoughts linger too long on that… because when I open my eyes in the morning and see that, yes, I'm still here on earth, then I know, without a doubt, God has a purpose and a mission for my day. I have to wake up ready to live life 100% in the here and now. It’s really a biblical way to live and…
I’ve learned this habit from the Israelites who were sojourners for 40 years in the wilderness. It says in Exodus 13, “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.”
The Israelites woke up every morning not knowing if they were to stay put there in camp for another day, or if they were to pull up the tent pegs, pack up, and follow the cloud and the pillar of fire. They had to be 100% ready to go… and at the same time be 100% ready to stay. Sometimes they stayed in one place for many months; other times, they had barely unpacked their things when they had to pack them back up and get going again. They had to keep their eyes focused on the cloud and pillar of fire… and in so doing, they learned how to live as pilgrims, as aliens, as sojourners on this earth: ready to stay – at the same time, ready to go.
And that’s the way I have learned to live. With this disability, I wake up every morning not knowing if I'm heading home to heaven or staying put here on earth for another day. But that’s not bad. God wants me to be 100% ready to go home to heaven… and He wants me to be 100% ready to stay here and live my life with energy and purpose and meaning and mission.
How about you? Are you 100% ready to go, should God call you home, and are you, today, 100% ready to stay living out your mission for another day on earth? Sometimes we get so entrenched in earthly things that the very idea of heaven seems off-putting; we don’t want to go to heaven too soon. On the other hand, sometimes we find earth a tiresome drudgery, and we sit on our hands, and we long and look forward to heaven as though it were an escape. Friend, you and I need to live in the shadow of the cloud and the pillar of fire of God's presence. Be ready to stay today… but also be ready to go. It’s the only way – it’s the Christian way – to live.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends