Camping

Have you ever been tent camping? Sometimes I wonder if camping is really a vacation. You pack up all your gear, sleeping bags, air mattresses, food, camping gear, tent, etc. You sleep on the hard ground. You hope it doesn't rain, because if it does, you'll be stuck inside the tent and you'd better not touch the sides or you'll get wet. If the tent leaks, you will be soggy and miserable. It's an effort to tend to life's basic necessities, like cooking or even slogging to the bathroom in the middle of the night. You make due, because at the end of the week, you know you'll be home again.

Do you remember how big your house feels after you get home from camping? All that space! Hot showers, a refrigerator, electricity, warm beds! Refuge from the storm. Even a little house feels like a palace after a week in an eight by ten tent. Remember that relieved, happy feeling of being home at last...

My reading this morning found me in 2 Corinthians.

5 For we know that if our earthly house, the tent we live in, is dismantled, we have a building from God, a house not built by human hands, that is eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this earthly house we groan, because we desire to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed, after we have put on our heavenly house, we will not be found naked. 4 For we groan while we are in this tent, since we are weighed down, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment. 

Think of our bodies as a tent in comparison to what our heavenly bodies will be. We're roughing it down here folks. We're in a lightweight tent, a body that sometimes get sick, feels inadequate, and is subject to the storms of life. But when we get home, we'll have a body made by God, eternal and perfect. Like comparing a tent to the Newport mansions kind of house, and probably far better. 

Camping can have some moments of awesomeness, just like our lives down here can feel pretty good sometimes. But it is a great encouragement to me to remember that down here we're just tent camping, and home is going to be SO AMAZING...