Take It with You

It was one of those sales–you know the kind–when there’s 50% off the original price, and now they’re another 50% off the sale price. So with that kind of bargain, you just KNOW you’re gonna find something, some amazing deal, some bargain that is so good you’ll be pretty much dancing your way to the dressing room. A friend of mine once remarked that you could call it a “one size fits all” sale because–as he described it–you are GOING to make that baby fit!

So I’d found the very item I’d been looking for all season, except that finally it was a price not merely in the affordable stage, but now very much in the “what a fantastic deal!” category. I couldn’t wait to get on that blouse…the perfect color…the chosen fabric…the exact style I thought I wanted and needed. There was now only one minor problem: it simply didn’t fit. It was too big, and no pulling this way or that, no readjustments, no rolling up of the sleeves hid the fact that I looked like I was wearing a tent. My one-size-fits-all bargain required either major alternations. Or I needed to walk away. The truth was, even a major re-do by a good seamstress wasn’t going to work, because that would ruin the lines of the blouse. It simply wasn’t a fit.

I’m reading Ecclesiastes again, and it’s amazing how my perspective of the book has changed over the years. When I first read it decades ago, I thought, “Say what? I’m sure this has much to say, but I’m just not relating to it at this point.” Some years passed and I read it again, this time thinking, “Hmmm. I guess I do get some of what Solomon’s saying.” And now? Well, now I’m thinking, “Oh yes. It’s like stripping away what doesn’t truly matter in this world, like scraping off old layers of paint. Or is it a refining, a learning to focus on what actually does hold significance, ignoring everything else like the annoying background static fuzz during a bad connection phone call?

Ecclesiastes 11b says, “He has set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they can’t fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” The NIV text note sums it up this way: “Since we were made for eternity, the things of time can’t fully and permanently satisfy.” Oh yes. That’s exactly what I felt with that blouse, and what I feel so often in this world. It’s not a fit and it was never meant to be. And then I thought about what I’m passionate about–how I used to have a list and now it’s so much shorter–or is it just more refined, like gold in the fire of life? Because now I realize it’s all come down to essentially one thing only: relationships. First, with God. And then with my family and friends.

You know the expression that “you can’t take it with you”? It’s the idea that you came into this world with nothing and you’ll go out the same way. I don’t agree. Because I do think you will take something powerful and impactful with you–that is, if you’ve invested your life wisely. What could you possibly take with you when you die? How you’ve been changed by the relationships in your life: how God has changed your soul. How your family and friends have changed the very core of who and what you are. That’s what you’ll take with you to heaven.

No, this world doesn’t fit just like Solomon tells us because we’re not made for this world; we’re fitted for heaven. All is vanity and like Solomon, we can feel the despair weigh heavy on our souls. But there is a cure: investing in relationship with God and others. Allowing God and others to invest deeply in us.

The power and soul-changing impact of deep, intimate relationships. Invest. Take it with you.