My tent

Do you like camping? 

A few years ago my husband and I went camping. It was at a spiritual family camp setting. There were many there camping.  

We stayed in a tent...with an air mattress. It was comfortable enough, for all the more we were in it. It was just for 2 nights!

Many that were there had campers, with beds, and air conditioners and BBQ grills. 

It was a little hard to not be envious. 

Now imagine that God gave each of us a tent. And he asks us to take care of it, however when it wears out and is destroyed he promises us a camper that is so amazing that we can't even imagine how nice it will be. 

Would you panic if your tent got a small tear?

Would you cry if it began to leak?

What if the zippers wouldn't work anymore? Or you broke some of the poles?

Would you drive all over looking for replacement parts? Would you invite people over to help mend the tent?

How far would you go to hold onto your tent?

It is my opinion that you would only run after and hold onto your tent if you did not fully believe that God would give you the camper.

God has much better for us.

His word compares our earthly bodies to tents. They are temporary. They are sufficient, until they aren't anymore.

I wonder if sometimes we wear ourselves out trying to hold on to the temporary. I can't help but think that we can lose our real focus by trying to repair our "tents."

Don't misunderstand me, I ask for prayers for physical issues, but I pray that the condition of my "tent" never takes away from my honoring of God. I pray that my desire to hang onto the thoughts of repairing and restoring my body that I won't lose sight of the camper.

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”

2 Corinthians 5:1-5 ESV