A few years ago, one of my daughters and I were talking. She said, “Mom, I want Jesus to come back, but I still have things I want to do and experience.” I told her I remember feeling that way when I was younger too. However, the older I get, the more I experience in this fallen world, and the more pain that I go through, there are days I am more than ready to go or for Jesus to come back. I’m not suicidal. I am just ready.
C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. I love to read his quotes. One I came across recently says “Pain is terrible, but surely you need not have fear as well? Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer? It means stripping off that body which is tormenting you: like taking off a hair-shirt or gettin out of a dungeon. What is there to be afraid of? You have long attempted (and none of us more) a Christian life. Your sins are confessed and absolved. Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are betting things ahead than any we leave behind.”
Do you know what a ‘hair-shirt’ is? I didn’t and had to look it up. It is a course cloth worn under a shirt next to the skin for penance. We always need to confess and seek forgiveness, but Jesus has already paid the penance for us!
We sometimes sing a song at worship called This World is Not my Home, I’m Just a Passin’ Through. This world doesn’t hold anything, I mean ANYTHING, compared to the one waiting for us! Let us take off our ‘hair-shirt’ and press on toward the goal as Paul said in Philippians 3.
