This World Is Not My Home

Have you tightened your belt yet? Going to the gas pump is about like experiencing that old ‘sticker shock’ thing when the price of vehicles took a huge jump. Where’s it all going to end? It’s not! Greed and selfishness is like a cancer and as it grows it just gets bigger and bigger. And like cancer, leave it alone and it will eventually destroy its host. On the other hand, attack it in an attempt to destroy it and the host is in for a lot of pain and sickness. This one thing I know is for certain. Transportation as we know it today is going to be a whole lot different in ten years. Our personal vehicles may look basically the same, but what’s under the hood is going to change completely. The children in grade school today will probably be required to have a masters degree in engineering and quantum physics just to work on vehicles in twenty years. Hydrogen is the fuel of the future and like electricity the small towns and rural communities will most likely be the last to get it. I’ll live long enough to see it, but probably won’t be able to afford it.
In 1957 people didn’t know what to expect next. Subjects such as these were being discussed. “I tell you if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s worth of groceries for $20!” “Have you seen the price of next year’s cars? It won’t be long before they’re going to cost $5000!” “And the Post Office is thinking of charging 10¢, just to mail a letter!” “If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00 an hour, nobody will be able to hire any help.” “Whoever thought gasoline would cost 29¢ a gallon?” “I read the other day some scientists think we can put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some guys called astronauts training for it down in Texas.” “Did you see some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000.00 a year just to play ball? Before you know it, professional sports people will be making more than the President.” “It’s too bad that things are so hard on young families today. Even some women are going to work to help make ends meet.” “I don’t know, but I think letting that Volkswagen car into the country is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.” “You know it costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel?” “Nobody can afford to be sick anymore. $35 a day in the hospital is too much for me.” “And I’m telling you right now, I’m never going to pay more than 50¢ for a haircut!”
[James 5] I for one would like to be around for one hundred years, with decent health of course, just to see all the changes in the world. Over the years as my faith has grown and I look more intently to my heavenly home than to my own back yard, I guess I’ve become more an observer of the world than a partaker. I’m comfortable with what I have and I’m no different than anyone else, I’d like to have more, but how much is enough? God’s will for man is perfect, except we ignore most of it. Sure, we want to go to heaven, but we want to do it personal and private way. That’s not what God had in mind. He wants us to take His perfect love as a measuring tool to work on perfecting our own love. Our love is to be shown whenever the need arises. Our love is to be shown in everything we do or say. I’m not going to worry, walk around wringing my hands looking lost and mournful. Patience, prayer, love and the assurance that God is with me will carry me the rest of my days no matter what the changes in the world may be. I’m not trying to make this world my permanent home as so many others are trying to do.