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Ready for the Big Move

Most people make a few moves throughout the course of life. I’ve endured enough of these to have made a few personal observations. Not every one may fit with your experience, but generally, if you’ve made a move, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Moving requires preparation. There are legal issues, real estate issues, municipal tax issues, utility issues, and renovation and decoration issues – all demanding time and attention. If you’re not prepared, bad things happen on moving day. I remember seeing a lady in tears on the front porch of her new house. She thought she had made all the arrangements, but had overlooked something and was making frantic calls to her realtor on her cell phone as the previous owners drove away.

Moving forces us to evaluate our priorities. Everyone I know is surprised by how much stuff they’ve accumulated since they started living in their current residence. Inevitably, we have to sort through it, packing the valuables and discarding the junk. Sometimes this is heart wrenching because we say goodbye to things that, at one time, were truly important to us. I recently helped a couple downsize as they anticipated moving into a retirement facility. While they were looking forward to the benefits of the new apartment, it was hard to let go of some of their things.

Moving gets us focussed on the new place. Most of us make positive moves. We change houses because we want to, not because we have to. We feel that we are moving up rather than down. Because of this, we often find it hard to focus on the mechanical aspects of getting ready for the move because we’re busy daydreaming about the place we’re moving to. When we made our last move, we’d even wake up in the middle of the night with ideas about things we wanted to do to the new place to make it more liveable.

All of us are facing at least one more move. The last one will be out of the physical body we’ve been living in for our whole life. We’ll step out of that into eternity and it’s unspeakably important to be prepared for that move. Jesus offered these words of reassurance to His followers as He was approaching the end of His own physical life on earth.

He said: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” When questioned about where He was going and how they could follow Him, Jesus responded, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:1-6 ESV)

Ron Hughes
© January 2009