Clockworks

"When our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:
'Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?'
For sin is the sting that results in death...but thanks be to God! 
He gives us victory over sin and death through 
our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Cor. 15:54-58)

A treasured clock sits in a corner of the Coosa River cabin kitchen. That 1977 Christmas gift from my sweet brother, Mark, has hung with Phillip and me in thirteen kitchens across nearly forty years. Recently, the clockworks died, but new replacement parts have the old timepiece up and ticking again.

At almost 61, sometimes I feel like an old timepiece with winding down clockworks; yet I rejoice and do not lose heart! In Christ, we're promised that though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For we know that when this earthly tent we live in wears out and is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God Himself and not by human hands (2 Cor. 4:16, 5:1).

Losing your gittyup in your get-along, beloved? Rejoice and don't lose heart. In Christ, you're an eternal timepiece awaiting Master-crafted clockworks that never, ever wear out, wind down, or waste away. The best is yet to come!