So the inspection on our new house was yesterday. Freezing cold. Pouring rain. But since our inspector is super fanatical about being an inspector, I don’t think it was a deal for him. I was so excited just to get in there again and see our new place… you know, do a little pre-nesting/bonding. And if Noah hadn’t started running a fever Sunday for, like, the millionth time this year (ok second, but still…) I totally would have. He came out of his room Sunday afternoon saying he felt horrible, so I took his temperature- 101. He asked me if he would go to school on Monday, and when I said no he couldn’t, he got the biggest smile and said, “I am so lucky!” Yes, an affinity for week long viruses, let’s buy him a lottery ticket.

Anyway, that’s not even my point. My point is, that the inspection went well by and large. (Which, how weird of a phrase is that… by and large???) So as the days left in this house grow fewer and fewer and the reality of West Dallas becomes more and more certain, I am so excited but also found myself growing a little sentimental at the same time too. For instance, registration opened last week at our boys’ preschool in Richardson, which our boys will no longer attend after this semester. We have been at that preschool since Noah was 15 months old. I taught music at that school. We love that school. I walked by the line of people waiting to register and got a little sad… I’ve stood in that line for 4 years. I belong in that line. I feel super comfortable in that line… more comfortable than, say, in the checkout line at Fiesta half a mile from our new house. So I have wrestled with this a little bit the last week until the Lord gave me a moment of great clarity today.

I was watching a message by Francis Chan online this morning when it clicked for me. He was talking about the extreme dangers of living in the safe, wealthy, comfortable part of the world that we do… where we make on average 100 times more than 50% of people on earth, yet call ourselves broke or claim to have financial problems… he was talking about how wealth and comfort are so blinding and debilitating spiritually that after Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler, he tells his disciples that it’s actually impossible for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom. Impossible… were it not for the inexplicable power of God to enable a few to find the narrow road. The young ruler couldn’t choose between Jesus and his wealth. The church at Laodicea in Rev 3 couldn’t choose between all out commitment to Christ and the world they enjoyed. But the kingdom of heaven is not like that. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a treasure in a field and with extreme joy went immediately and sold everything he had to buy the field. The kingdom of heaven is not Lot’s wife looking back to what she was leaving. The kingdom of heaven is the tax collector Zacchaeus, who for the joy of being invited to be with Jesus, freely gives away his possessions to the poor and extravagantly pays back everyone he’d wronged.

I sat there this morning and thought- The kingdom of heaven is not following where Jesus leads, while talking about how sad it is to give up other things… even good things. The kingdom of heaven is the mother who celebrates with gratitude the blessings God has given and then lets them go joyfully when Christ says, “Now it will be different.” The kingdom of heaven is not a comparison process… “I’m excited to see what God does here, but I’ll really miss this. I know it will be worth it for this, but it’ll just be so hard to not have this.”  That is nowhere described in Scripture as the kingdom. That is a heart that partly wants God and partly loves its own comfort. And if the draw of being comfortable is so strong that joy and contentment in simply following Christ become hard to find, then it is FOR SURE time to be uncomfortable.

I know it may sound like I am making a bigger deal out of this than it is. Even part of me says, “Good grief, Sarah, it’s just a preschool. It’s not a bad thing. It was a really sweet place that you will miss, and it’s ok to be sad.” But often in the most benign circumstances we nurture the most destructive mindsets. I think of something John Piper wrote, “The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.”

I was wondering this morning, if Jesus was sitting on the corner of Legacy and Custer teaching people today and saw me drive by, would He say, “The kingdom of heaven is like Sarah, who…” or would He say, “Do you see how much she has and how she struggles not to hold onto it? It is so hard for wealthy people to be saved- nearly impossible…” These are very serious, heavy things to post in a blog, I understand, but how would the world be different if everyone who knew Jesus lived in a such a way that it could be said of them,” The kingdom of heaven is like…”