Luxury Beyond Compare - Part I

I just wanted to post a picture of the house we bought yesterday at the bargain price of $2,250,000. Just kidding. We couldn't even afford the monthly utilities on this place! But we did tour it and they even gave us a free hot dog and Coke just for coming! (Who doesn't love free food?) The information sheet we were given announced, "Welcome to the most luxurious home in North Alabama". I have to say, I was impressed. Something like 6 bedrooms, all with their own private full baths, a master suite with a huge loft, a kitchen with a butcher block "island" that was about the size of my whole kitchen, a "secret passageway" that looks like a bookcase when it's closed (the kids' favorite feature!), an elevator, a movie theater with recliner seating for 20.... a third floor with more big rooms with names like, "Yoga Room" and "Wine Tasting Room"... at 12,000 square feet, a family of five could live in this house and never see each other! (Hmmmm....).

It had some draw-backs. My biggest complaint was that if I had $2,250,000 to spend on a house, I wouldn't buy one wedged into a cul-de-sac where the "view" from the Master bedroom is of the neighbor's driveway. Tim wondered why there was no drain underneath the "shower" on the sun porch. And why there was a shower when there was no pool. (No pool?! A pool would have been nice-especially if it were an indoor heated pool).

I left with my Diet Pepsi in hand, thinking, "So now I've seen the best that North Alabama has to offer". Not bad. But I do have to take exception with the title on the information sheet... "Luxury Beyond Compare". I've been thinking alot about heaven lately, not because I plan to go there any time soon, but because everywhere I turn, God is reminding me that this world is not my home. It is a theme that probably started when I got Aaron Shust's new CD and one of my favorite songs on there became "Ever After"... here's the chorus,

"There's no such thing as Peter Pan

No such place as Never Never Land

I wish we all could have

Those tiny magic wings

But we live in a world with wars

It's not like it was before

We won't find our happy ever after here

There's no such thing"

I find profound and life-changing truth in this. On the surface, it may seem kind-of depressing, but take it from someone who KNOWS "depressing"... it's really the opposite. It is the only answer that makes any sense when we have tried all the world has to offer (and I have tried alot of it)... and yet, our longings are never quite satisfied. Even "the most luxurious home" didn't offer me all I could WANT in a house. And even when we do all the right things, bad things still happen, never mind the grief we experience when we inevitably do the wrong things. And even the best, most faithful christian people live every day in situations that are just hard.

I am still making my way through "Mere Christianity" and C.S. Lewis says it this way.... "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world".

The house we toured was nice, but they are wrong that there is nothing to compare to its luxury. The many mansions in my Father's House are much more grand and leave nothing to be desired. He is all I need and all I could ever want and my soul will never be completely satisfied until I am with Him forever. I find alot of comfort in realizing that.

I have more to say on this subject.... stay tuned. :-)