What will you take with you?

Back in April, I had the opportunity to return to London for a five-day visit. From my American perspective, that city's history is simply "off the scale." To get a sense of that scale, one of its' newer buildings, the current Saint Paul's Cathedral, was completed a little after the founding of the city of Detroit over 300 years ago.

Among the stops that I made was to the Museum of London, only a very short distance from the site of John Wesley's Aldersgate experience in May of 1738. The exhibit which captured my attention at the Museum of London was a remembrance of the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London in September, 1666.

There were a lot of artifacts from that era in the exhibit that day. Many were books which provided eyewitness accounts of the fire. Another artifact was a charred brick from Pudding Lane, where the fire started (pictured here). This brick "experienced" that fire; We were allowed/encouraged to touch that brick and connect ourselves with its history. There was a large backlit timeline of the fire as well as an interactive map which showed the spread of the fire in old London, a city which in 1666 was mainly made up of wood-constructed buildings.

As I walked through the exhibit, the dimension of human suffering that fire caused became clearer and clearer. The Great Fire wasn't a fictional story. It happened to real flesh and blood people, whose lives were turned upside down so very quickly. It is estimated that 70,000 out of 80,000 buildings were destroyed by the fire in a matter of only a few days. Thousands lost their homes and their livelihoods. The official death toll stood at six, though historians suspect the death toll could have been much larger, possibly in the thousands as the fire would have hidden the evidence of those deaths. Thomas Goodwin, a Puritan minister of the era, lost a sizable part of his large, personal library. In walking through this exhibit, you could feel the near sense of panic those Londoners felt to halt the fire. They had nothing resembling modern fire-fighting equipment. Buildings were purposely blown-up to act as a buffer from the fire's further spread.

One part of this exhibit that got my greatest attention had to do with a small wooden chest. Many of those Londoners, during those frightful September days, knew that the fire would shortly destroy their homes. They might have hours, perhaps minutes, to take a handful of earthly possessions with them and flee from the oncoming fire. The exhibit pointed this out so well. That small wooden chest I saw was like the ones those desperate people would have used to carry a handful of earthly possessions to safety. Next to the replica trunk, the exhibit sign (which encouraged an interactive approach to the tour) read:

Pack your trunk. Save your belongings from the Great Fire! Time is short and space is limited so you could only choose THREE things. What will you take? What is most precious to you? Or most useful?

I've asked myself that same question over the last several months. If I were in a situation from which I had to flee for my life and could only take three things, what would they be? From the safety in which I currently live, I think that I'd like to take with me a copy of the Bible, some notecards, a few pens and a copy of Thomas Goodwin's 1651 book "The Heart of Christ." (I know that's more than three items but shirt pockets come in handy).

"What will you take with you?" is a question which millions have people have asked  in the past and in the present moment in the face of fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, political upheavals and disasters, both natural and human-made. In recent weeks, a series of hurricanes and earthquakes have devastated many of the Caribbean islands as well as parts of Mexico and the parts of the states of Texas and Florida in the United States. Catastrophes have a way of sifting out the important from the unimportant in our lives. Like Thomas Goodwin's library, very valuable things, perhaps irreplaceable things, will be lost. Yet, things to which we have been attached seem less important as a result, perhaps even garbage-worthy.

Several years ago, the Detroit area encountered a "storm of the century" which resulted in local freeways being flooded out and thousands of families, including my in-laws, experiencing something which they never faced before, several feet of water in their basements. Family treasures and memorabilia, safe and dry one week, became water- logged items for the next week's garbage pick up.

Eventually, each of us will face circumstances when we will be forced to leave the place we live. Perhaps we will have years, or months or days to prepare for it. For some, like Detroit's "Storm of the Century", it will come quickly and unexpectedly. To that place we are going, we cannot take even one of our earthly possessions. That moment, will be the moment of our death. We will leave time to enter into eternity. As we flee from this world, we can take no earthly possession. Yet, we can take a heavenly one. In your spiritual version of the Great Fire of London chest, carry with you a love and trust in God in Christ. It is your only sure possession which will last you now and for eternity.

Weights and Measures

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV

Notice the distinction between "every weight" and "sin which clings so closely." There are some things we are called to put off which are not, of and by themselves, sinful by nature. An interesting commentary on this passage is found in "Way Into the Holiest" by F.B. Meyer(1847-1929). In Chapter XXVII, Meyer wrote:

WE MUST RUN FREE OF WEIGHTS. This speed can only be maintained when we run unencumbered and free. Now, of course we would all admit the necessity of divesting ourselves of sins; but in all our lives there are weights which are not sins. A sin is that which in its very nature, and always, and by whomsoever perpetrated, is a transgression of God's law, a violation of God's will. But a weight is something which in itself or to another may be harmless, or even legitimate, but in our own case is a hindrance and an impediment.

Every believer must be left to decide what is his own special weight. We may not judge for one another. What is a weight to one is not so to all. But the Holy Spirit, if he be consulted and asked to reveal the hindrance to the earnestness and speed of the soul's progress in divine things, will not fail to indicate it swiftly and infallibly. And this is the excellence of the Holy Spirit's teaching: it is ever definite. If you have a general undefined feeling of discouragement, it is probably the work of the great enemy of souls; but if you are aware of some one hindrance and encumbrance which stays your speed, it is almost certainly the work of the divine Spirit, who is leading you to relinquish something which is slackening your progress in the spiritual life.

No man would think of maintaining a high speed encompassed with weights. The lads who run for a prize litter the course with garments flung away in their eager haste. There would be little difficulty in maintaining an intense and ardent spirit if we were more faithful in dealing with the habits and indulgences which cling around us and impede our steps. Thousands of Christians are like water-logged vessels. They cannot sink; but they are so saturated with inconsistencies and worldliness and permitted evil that they can only be towed with difficulty into the celestial port.

Is there anything in your life which dissipates your energy from holy things, which disinclines you to the practice of prayer and Bible study, which rises before you in your best moments, and produces in you a general sense of uneasiness and disturbance? something which others account harmless, and permit, and in which you once saw no cause for anxiety, but which you now look on with a feeling of self-condemnation? It is likely enough a weight."

I also found a related blog entry here. The blog entry is a commentary on and application to Psalm 101:3 and the topic of "worthless things." How often do our best intentions get derailed when things which have no real enduring value in the scheme of eternity absorb time which could have been used in Bible study, prayer, Christian service to others? This is something which has become more and more evident in my Christian walk. For many years after my coming to Christ in faith back in 1984, I spent a lot of time in doing research to refute certain distinctive doctrines of the church in which I grew upapologetics. I kept telling myself that I was doing this to help family members who were still a part of that church. Only about two years ago did I realize that I have been spending way too much time in this endeavor. It was at that time that I knew I could logically demonstrate my case but without the Holy Spirit opening up hearts and minds, no one would listen. My prayer life suffered and has only really recovered in the last year.

Keep in mind that what I was doing was not only not evil but could definitely glorify God. However, it ended up sucking away irreplacible time and screwing up my prayer life. It was definitely a weight which I needed to throw off (or at least radically reduce) to run the race which Christ is calling me to run.

Pray for the wisdom to know what your weights and worthless things are. Truly this must be done with wisdom. It would be easy for myself or someone else to develop a list of "never do the following...." as a kind of holiness code. However, church history shows us, from the Pharisees of Christ's time to individuals today, when one makes up a list of dos & don'ts, we can easily default our thinking and actions to conform with the list rather than conforming to Christ. We might think that if something is not on the list, it's automatically okay.

One help in this may be found in a resolution written by Jonathan Edwards in the early 1720s. In his 7th Resolution, Edwards wrote:"Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life. Our time on Earth is short. I realize this more and more with each passing year. I turned 51 last month. Those years have seemed to go by so quickly. Yet, I have been blessed to make it to at least 51. Many others in human history never got this far in their earthly years. This should be a sobering reminder about asking the Lord to teach us to live our lives redeeming the time which we have.

Please don't take this entry as a "let's put on a hairshirt and have no more fun for as long we live" rant. However, this does require wisdom from God. Are we spending excessive time and money in some pursuit, which, in the eternal scheme of things, is of little or no value. My first application comes immediately. Being a hockey fan and relishing the fact that my hometown Detroit Red Wings have made it to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I'll need to ask myself if I'm spending too much time in following the Red Wings during this playoff season.

Lastly, while non-useful items to the Christian are considered a weight, there is a weight which we need to involve ourselves in. 2 Corinthians 4:7 tells us: "For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison". A verse such as this is a poignant reminder to keep eternity in mind in how we use our time here and now.