Sand Castles

But our citizenship is in heaven… Phil. 3.20

You do not belong to this earth. You are just a passerby, a traveler who has to do your business quick and right, pack up and leave and get back to your Master’s house.

You are not of this world. You belong to a higher order of God’s creation. You have an eternity to look forward to, an eternity that God planned even before you were born into this journey.

Stop living as if this whole earthly life is the whole point of your existence. This is not your home, stop trying to feel at home here. You have a life hidden with Christ in the high heavens. You have a glorious inheritance in the kingdom of God.

Stop setting your mind on earthly things. Everything that you see around you will pass. Like a sand castle in the shore, everything here will be washed back to the sea by billowing waves. Why would you spend your whole life building a sand castle and glorying in that precarious accomplishment when you could be taking a ride in the boat of God’s grace and sail with Christ to the shores of heaven?

You may have built the best sand castle in the whole world, you may have decorated it with all your other accomplishments and prided yourself of being the sole architect and builder of your life, but that sand castle will always remain at the mecry of the raging waves of the sea. You can fortify it with your bank accounts and medals and plaques of appreciation but you can never sleep well at night because you will never know when the unmerciful waves will strike your castle down.

And no matter how you comfort yourself with the idea that you are a self made person, your best efforts are nothing but dry, boring sand in comparison to the glittering gold that adorn the streets of the heavenly city. It’s like a child priding himself of his chopsticks music in front of Beethoven, or a caricature of stick figures standing next to Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

The absurdity of the illustrations I mentioned point to one thing: your citizenship is in heaven, make your business on earth be the business our Master sent you here for. Take no other detours and side jobs. Live like the foreigner that you are. Don’t feel at home here. Don’t hold on too much to the comforts and glories of this foreign land. You are supposed to get your business done and go home.

Yes, home. Take that ship of God’s grace in Christ and leave your sand castles, no matter how good they seem now.