Gate in a deer fence,

Well, this is kind of the last long post for a period. I am going on holiday. With my sons, and I am not particularly concerned if I have internet access. I’m more worried about stinging jelly fish, the great barrier reef, and driving most of the length of New Zealand. Twice. The aim is to nave a family holiday with them: and then they will go off to Parachute while I return to work.

Blogging may be light. But… this is one of the last summers that the boys will tolerate doing family things. They are growing, and I hope that in the next two or three years they will be using the summer break to work, to have adventures… while I fervently pray for their safety. For the season of parenting will pass.

And seasons in one’s life do pass. Children know that you cannot go back to being a three-year old when you are five. There is a cycle of prosperity, exuberance and then crash depression and retrenchment. The period we are now in (retrenchment) is part of this… and it ends. Once you have lived through two Bubble s(87 and 92) this one is not that big a deal.

And the season of the church, of the temple will also end. The final plan is that God will dwell with us.

Revelation 21:22-27

²²I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. ²⁵Its gates will never be shut by day — and there will be no night there. ²⁶People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. ²⁷But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Now… this is not a description of Jerusalem in the time of King David, or Solomon, or Josiah. Nor is it the temple of restoration. Nor is it the temple of Jesus time, Saint Sophia at the height of the Byzantine Empire, St Paul’s in Rome, or Calvin’s Geneva. We seek that perfect city but it cannot come until the time of Christ.

In this life, beauty is ephemeral. We celebrate it… but we know it will fade, as the speed of the athlete goes, so does the beauty of maiden also go. For youth is but a season, as is raising one’s childen, working, or our very life. We are but a season. We have to look to God for permanence.

And the institutions of this age: our churches, our ministries, or families, our cities… or married state… Will end.

Now, among the young and the more cynical this can lead to a sense that it is simply not worth doing anything. For all our effort eventually will fade. This is an error. For the very effort we put into doing the tasks set upon us resonates with the people whom are sent to us for a season. How we raise children matters. How we treat our wife or husband matters. And how we do the tasks in this life matters. The apostle would remind us that we should do all to the glory of God.

But I cooked dinner tonight because the child I love was hungry. I’m afraid, at the end of the day, I cannot reach towards mysticism. I’m not very spiritual. What I believe is, in the economy of grace. the things we do that glorify God truly matter. And they better be within the family before we pretend that we can do any public ministry.