prepare and consider

His wife said she had packed papers they knew they would need, but that was it. "If you even think that something's going to happen, you should prepare, and consider all the things that are most meaningful to you. Because once they're gone, you can never get them back," she said tearfully.

 

I spotted the quote above from an article about one of the families that fled the California fires this week.  I was intrigued by the phrase "you should prepare, and consider all the things that are most meaningful to you".  The idea I got was that we should realize how temporary even the most precious possessions are.  The very things that make certain items endearing create great pain when they are taken away.  We don't schedule disasters and there isn't any tangible item that can't be taken away at a totally unexpected time.  That's why it's critically important to know that most precious possessions of all can never be taken from us, nor us from them.  Jesus told us that nothing could separate us from Him.

 

Romans 8:35-38 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written: 
      “ For Your sake we are killed all day long;
       We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”^[c]

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

blessings,

Rob Smith