Taking Hold of Eternal Things

I feel something changing within me. A new, heightened sense of awareness for what is really eternal and what is only temporary. I feel myself aching to cling to what matters, but still you are prying from my clutched hands the now I struggle to let go of. You are reminding me of phrases long forgotten but so full of truth. "You are headed towards uncharted territory," she told me once. And I remember in that moment only wanting to be held. But she was challenging me instead. I was too afraid to accept that challenge then. But now I think I'm almost ready. "You will be a voice to the nations, a messenger of God," they prophesied over me. And while it sounded great, I missed the point that being a voice and a messenger is a privilege that would only come once I learn to be a servant first.

You flooded my dreams with visions of what could be, and You have been working to make me sensitive to Your Spirit. I am beginning to tell the difference between what I feel and what You want me to know. I am learning temperance. But I am desiring more than anything to possess the gentleness that You find so precious. I am longing to embrace silence long enough to let You speak to me and long enough to be able to hear others and really listen to them. I am desiring to love relentlessly those who seem so unlovable by this world's standards. I want people to know that they matter.

I am learning what it means to be an alien and a wanderer in a land I can't call home. And I am understanding that my citizenship is not in any earthly nation, but with Your Kingdom that is to come. I don't belong here. And that makes me feel so lonely. Though I have family waiting with me to be taken Home too, I feel like we are all alone together... this loneliness lingers. This longing. I am longing for my Husband. I am longing to be with you. To be held by You, dear One. I find myself craving the safety I know will only come within the walls of your Kingdom.

How can I live with eternity as my focus when the temporary is all that seems to surround me? Can you teach me to recognize eternity in the things I am encountering daily? Can you teach me to live as though you're coming back to get me tomorrow? I want to be found ready, blameless, and standing firm. I want you to find me living dead to myself. I want to take the beautiful love you've lavished on me and share it with those who need it. I want to give up the temporary conveniences that I have been relying on and take hold of eternal things now.