When my brother, sister, and I were little, like… last summer, whenever we’d have a cookout, we’d play with the campfire, watch the flames, poke at them with a stick, and see what will burn. Marshmallows burn. Hot dogs burn. Hot dog bun bags burn. Plastic forks drip with a zinging, hissing sound that sounds like fireworks, but yes, they burn. Leaves, pine needles, pine cones, sticks, logs, paper plates. Hot dog buns, however, will not burn. Really makes you confident in the nutritional value when fire itself can’t consume it.
This world is going to burn. People worry about global warming? Yeah, that’s an understatement. Forget nuclear winter or whatever other apocalyptic catastrophes people worry about. This world will end in fire, and everything flammable will burn (Revelation 8:7-11, 9:17-18, 16:8, 20:9).
At the end of my life, whether the whole world has burned by then or not, everything I’ve ever lived for will be sacrificed to the fire, stuck in the flames like a plastic fork and we’ll see what makes it (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). What are the hot dog buns and what are the hot dogs.
Jesus tells us what gives our life meaning. What, when lived for, brings the peace that passes understanding. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). Nothing else matters. Nothing else makes it. And nothing else makes for peace.
Excerpt from “Peace and How to Keep It.”