Daily Devotional

My wife and I are not Fresno natives. We both grew up in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Usually we tell people “The Sacramento area” because that’s the nearest major city. We actually lived in a small town 20 minutes from a slightly less small town, which was 25 minutes from a medium sized town, which was 20 minutes from a city the size of Clovis. Yes, that means the nearest Trader Joe’s was an hour away. What our small town lacked in convenience it made up for in beauty. We also had months of rain, occasional snow, and a lot of firewood needed to keep our house warm.

Every year we’d do our first fire in our woodstove in October and use it all the way into May. We would usually go through about 5 or 6 cords of wood during that time. For those who don’t burn firewood, a cord is a technical unit of measurement that means “a whole lot of wood.” In order to have this sizeable amount of wood ready by October, we would spend June-September cutting down trees, chopping them up, bringing them home, splitting the wood, and stacking it up. Day, after day, after day.
 
Even though we lived in the hills where it got cold, it also got plenty hot in the summer. Maybe not Fresno hot, but hot enough. All those days and weeks and months acquiring firewood in 100-degree weather it was hard to imagine a time when we would actually need to have a fire. We had to learn to live our summers in view of winter. Of course, I didn’t want firewood in the middle of summer, but I knew I’d want it in the middle of winter.

In the same way, we have to remember that there’s more to this life than just this life. It's easy to get consumed with what’s right in front of us. We can sometimes forget that we should be getting ready for what’s next rather than just living for the here and now.
 
There were plenty of summer days that I wanted to do something else other than split firewood in the sun but when winter came, and I had plenty of wood to heat my house I was glad I had chosen to live those summer days differently. When we get to the end of our earthly lives, I don’t think a single one of us are going to wish we lived less for Jesus. We need to live this life in view of eternity.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.