I, John, am a Material Girl

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
-Luke 17:26-33

It's interesting that this is the way that Jesus communicates the arrival of the end of the world, that salvation comes for those who look at life as what it is, a detour. It is those who define life as eating, drinking, marrying, doing business, making progress, who are left out of the kingdom of heaven.

But this passage seemingly describes all of us, Christian or not. We are people who get caught up in life on earth, and forget that we are just passing through, that life is but a mist. It's why Christians struggle to understand why marriage does not exist in heaven, and it's why many Christians' visions of heaven include all the things we love about earth, but in greater proportions. We are people in love with the things of earth, with material possession, with what we acquire in these finite days. Simply baffling. The world offers us a lot of things. Many of them we like so much that we'd like to turn around and grab them before leaving this place forever. But would we take just anything the world offers us? Of course not. I'd like to leave grief behind; cancer, too. What we so often fail to acknowledge is that it's all-or-nuthin'.

Perhaps harder for us to understand is that even the good things of this world are the equivalent of a frostbitten toe compared to what is offered in heaven. It's hard for us to imagine how wonderful is the unfiltered presence of God, but it's so good that we wouldn't even be interested in having our iPods, our Wiis, our Facebook news feeds, our houses, our cars, or our savings accounts.

Life on earth is not more than these things. But life itself is. And should we turn to get them when we are called into heaven, we shall end up where our hearts are. Why? Because you know we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.

It's not the stuff itself, but rather a proclivity to preoccupation that dooms us, ultimately. We are preoccupied with immediate things - some material and some immaterial. And the fascination grows and grows with each new iPhone, each new girlfriend, each new career decision. The challenge is that we have been called to live in this material world and not be material girls. How? By acknowledging that the most significant thing to us is a right relationship between creation and Creator, both individually and corporately. When we see God the Father, Son, and Spirit with love, adoration, and worship, all those less important things seem to fade. It is in this way that twelve apostles felt it worthwhile to leave father and mother and comfortable job to follow Jesus, and to not return to those things when he left him to finish the work that he started. And those apostles left us the work to finish, since they didn't see its completion either. And maybe we'll leave the unfinished work to those after us. But maybe we won't. And if that's the case, maybe we'll be fortunate enough to see God the Father, Son, and Spirit with eyes loving, adoring, and worshiping enough to know...He, above all else (life included), is all we need.