Picture for a moment the hallway in your high school. Hard concrete floors. Harsh fluorescent lighting. Metal lockers on both sides. Was that the main part or main focus on your high school days? No! It was just a passage used to get you from one place to another.
This is not unlike some trips that you have taken. Maybe you were going to see family or you were going on a vacation. You get in your car and hit the highway for hours and hours. You stop along the way for one night in a hotel or campsite, but the next morning you’re back on the road. Were the travel days your actual destination or the main focus of your trip? No! They were just temporary passage to get you to where you were going.
Those two examples are used to illustrate the nature of your life. Your life is like the hallway in your high school. Your life is like the travel days to go see family. The main focus is the destination, not on the passage to get there. The passageways are essential and must be properly planned and used, but if you get stuck in and only focus on the passage, you’ll never get to the destination.
Now, let’s make the application. Our life is described in Scripture like that of “aliens and pilgrims” (1 Chron. 29:15) and “sojourners and exiles” (1 Pet. 2:11, ESV). We are merely temporary residents on this earth, for “our days on earth are as a shadow” (1 Chron. 29:15) or “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (Jas. 4:14). How much focus do we put on a shadow or on a vapor? Our focus is usually on the actual substance.
Where is your focus? Is your primary focus on the here and now of temporary life on this earth (and the word “primary” is key), or is your primary focus on the there and then of eternal life in heaven? Paul said, “We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).
We put so much emphasis sometimes on the lives we are living now in our bodies, which are merely “jars of clay” (2 Cor. 4:7), that we neglect “reaching forward” to “press toward the goal” of eternity with Christ (Phil. 3:13-14; 1:21-23). This earthly life is not (don’t misunderstand) unimportant or insignificant. But the life we are living right now has a purpose! That purpose is not to make “provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Rom. 13:14), but our purpose is to glorify God (Isa. 43:7), exemplify Christ for others to see (Gal. 2:20) and win souls to Christ (Luke 4:43). Are you fulfilling your purpose? Are you focused on your eternal goal?