Temporary Permanence

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise. (Proverbs 11:30)

How permanent is our permanent when we look at it with an eternal perspective? What really is permanent?

I want us to scale it down even to earthly things. How long is your permanent? What do you interpret permanent to mean?

I was in a place and found it interesting that two houses that were excellent in their design and building have been demolished and other houses put up which appeared smaller at the exact place the others were. And I am talking about a span of less than twenty years and the land has not changed owners.

I was not able to talk to the owners so I do not have the real reasons the original structures were pulled down. But I can hazard a guess.

The owners live in a city far away. This means that the houses are for the most part unoccupied and unused. And there is nothing as bad as a house that is unoccupied for long in its disintegration. I am not talking about vandals.

That nature detests a vacuum is evident wherever you may look. I suspect the timber parts fell apart, though they were the smaller parts of the houses as they were aesthetic additions. Then of course the bricks lent their support in the protest. Eventually, a house that looked excellent from the outside decayed from within. Sample this

A successful patriarch builds a palace fit for a king in his hey days. But unfortunately he has no king to hand the palace to. He finds out later that none of his children have any interest in occupying that mammoth of a house. The sheer size, number of rooms and things are unimaginable to a normal mortal.

Though it can afford independent living for several families, none of his descendants want to live in that Stone Age relic as they call it. They insist on building their own.

The house becomes scary to the old couple after the children move out. They can’t live in it anymore and must move out to a more manageable size house. And they must employ servants to maintain their palace.

They think of selling the palace but nobody is interested in it. They are only interested in the land it is on. But they can’t stand seeing their palace going down as they are sure they would go into depression when they remember the fortune they spent putting it up. They think of giving it to someone to stay in but its size scares anybody who gets interested.

What am I trying to say?

Most of the things we value have an expiry date. Like the houses I have mentioned they will sooner or later become useless, perhaps even burdensome.

We are therefore not very wise when we turn our focus on things. They will expire.

The human soul, however, is eternal. It will outlive this dimension to the next, the eternal. That is something many people do not want to look at, sometimes until it is too late.

But that eternity has two parts; eternal life and eternal torment. Our destination is decided by the way we lived in this temporal life. Our eternal investment is decided by the kind of investments we made in this dimension.

Do we live with our eye on the eternal? Do we build our souls on the eternal dimension? Are we developing our minds to understand and interpret the eternal?

Are we investing in the eternal dimension? Are we using our temporal resources to build eternal structures? In other words are we investing in the souls of men?

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6: 19 – 21)

Investing is not sin. Building good houses is not sin. They are just too temporal in the light of eternity (or even a full life) to waste the much effort many are spending. Let me give an analogy.

How would you feel if you find children or their parents fighting to amass pampers (or nappies)? Of course you would not find it amusing, but rather disgusting. And that is not because they are useless. They are things the child will outgrow in a very short time.

Do you realize that we are worse off than them when we look at eternity?

Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. (James 5: 19, 20)

I am not just talking about evangelism. I am talking about living for people as opposed to living for yourself or things.

Do you realize that a house that is being lived in does not decay? Illogical as it might appear that is the reality. In the same place the houses were demolished and others built are shacks that have been there for ages and have not deteriorated because they have people living in them.

On the same plane do you realize that a person who invests in people never also falls apart? It would be very hard to see someone who enjoys being with people and helping out and developing people falling into depression. They will rarely run out of energy however old and wizened they might be. They will never die of bitterness or curse their offspring because life is enjoyable.

I remember my grandmother who died after having lived 120 or so years. She always cooked a lot of food though she ate very little. Though she had no teeth, she always included dry maize in her food as she envisioned others eating her food and very few people like eating mushy food without any exercise for their teeth. She had her garden from which she gave out most of what she produced. You come to visit and give her money she will almost always give it to the next person who comes visiting. There was an operation she did on children who had defied doctors yet she took nothing for it though people came ready to part with anything to have their children treated due to the level of desperation they had reached and many had travelled from very far. And even when they insisted she would do with those gifts as she did with every other gift.

I say that because, having been named after her son we were close and spent a lot of time together.

She didn’t die with anything people would call investment but I am sure her name is a blessing wherever her hand may have touched.

Compare her with this other man I know who, I was told, rotted and was eaten by worms even before he died because in his bitterness he was a threat even to people who sought to help him in his infirmity. He was in charge of land demarcation after independence and so decided who got land and who didn’t. He therefore gave himself lands and lands and lands even as he took land from their owners and gave it to others because of personal differences. His children however lost his acumen for wealth and acquisitions. As soon as he would give a child land, the child would sell it and waste on vain things. His permanent was too temporary that it killed him with bitterness and regret.

When God gives us children, we have the choice of raising brats or world class individuals and anything in between. Sadly, we will know the kind of citizens we raised at a time we have no other input to change the direction their lives have taken.

I look at a young man cutting the queue to board public transport, shamelessly overtaking women old enough to be his grandmother and wonder the state of his brain. But then I reflect on the kind of small children on the same vehicles and understand where the problem originated. The parents, (many times the mother), pampered the child and offered preferential treatment since they were very small. They therefore interpret the world as a system only meant to serve them. Pushing a grandmother out of the queue is therefore the smallest of bothers since when it was a small child the same grandmother would stand even as he occupied a seat too big for his small body as the mother (I have seen many) have paid for the seat and have no place for anybody else however desperate the situation is.

But many times the same parents will have to take the bitter taste of their own medicine as God has promised that we will reap what we sow.

Look at these parents who educated their children to the highest, many times taking them abroad. These children make it out there and see no need of returning home as their lives are full.

The parents age and of course require the presence of those children. The children have become so full of themselves that their parents become a bother. Some have properties and businesses to be managed that desperately need those children to take over. And of course at that age they really need the presence of those children even as they approach their deaths.

If as a young child and infant you showed them that they were the centre of the world, what makes you think that they will unlearn that to consider their aging parents, who to them have become a bother, even a nuisance for their insistence? If you rebuked and sometimes took his teacher to court for ‘molesting’ your angel when he shouted at him for disturbing the class, what makes you think that your insisting he comes to visit, leave alone stay, will not be treated as molestation from the old folk? You taught them not to take no for an answer and are surprised when they insist you give them their inheritance even if you are still young and they are just past teenage.

Maybe you demonstrated that things are of more value than people in your dealings. Remember when you boasted buying someone so much beer that he sold you his land for a song? Then you wonder that he bought you a TV covering one wall for a price higher than a piece of land when you wanted him to come live near you! Or he bought you the latest limousine and paid a chauffeur when you cried you needed company.

But the worst is not being able to introduce our children to the kind of life Christ has prepared for them. You see, children model their parents in more ways than the parents imagine. They will value God as they see you value Him.

Let me summarize what I have been saying. Investing in people is worthier by far than investing in real estate. Building people’s lives offers better dividends than building palaces. And appreciating people outweighs any and every investment portfolio.

And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. (Daniel 11: 32, 33)

Invest in people. Invest in ministries that are involved in people and not programs. Appreciate people who will not favor you just because you have money though they make you feel just normal, because your money does not make you otherwise.

Do not allow your money to deceive you to imagine that it is all you need, because it isn’t.

Like is said money can buy you the best bed but it cannot buy sleep. It can afford the best hospitals but it can’t be able to stop you from getting sick or dying. It can pay for the best holiday but can’t buy joy or even happiness and peace. It can afford the most exquisite wedding ceremony but can’t ensure a fulfilling marriage. In short, money is very limited because it is man’s creation.

On the other side do you realize that many times people reach their peak where they can afford anything and they realize they may have to live a very tasteless life? Do you know that many people who can afford anything eat food tasting like sawdust? Their doctors order them to stop enjoying food so as to live a bit longer. No salt, no meat, no fat, no eggs, no sugar, no milk, no spices, in short no tasty food. Yet that was one reason someone struggled to get all that money to eat life with a big spoon.

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12: 32 – 34)

Though God is ready to freely offer His kingdom that is as permanent as eternity, we must realize that to be able to grasp it we must let go of the kingdoms we are holding. We must release to be able to receive.

But what He offers is way more precious than many of these kingdoms we are wasting our all to get, and even then just temporarily.

(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6: 32 - 34)

We will not stop living when we allow God’s kingdom control our life and decisions. That is in fact when we really start living because we will then start experiencing eternal (permanent, inexhaustible, undiminishing) life.

Have you wasted your life pursuing things instead of God’s life? Have you valued things above people? Have you wandered away from God’s life as you once knew it? Would you like to know and experience this eternal life?

Lift your heart to God, the creator of life and repent for seeking things He has promised to those who will seek His kingdom. Then pray that the sacrifice His Son gave for making it possible for man to reconnect to eternal life the way he was created to live. Then allow Him to change that twisted lifestyle you have created, a life doomed to fail. I will support you in prayer if you so request.

Finally get a Bible and start reading it as it is the only book that can tell you the dynamics of God’s kind of life and how to live it.

God bless you