August 26th, 2046, 7:13 AM
Zeke opened the glass door of the hutch his great-grandfather built and listened to the all-to-familiar squeak of the hinge. He fingered the intricate carvings at the top and wiped the old dust that clung to his hand off on his pants.
“Goodbye,” he muttered.
The kitchen floor creaked as he passed through. That stinking creak that he tried to quiet three times over the last fifteen years they lived here. He’d miss it too.
Now the house was silent. Filled with their furniture and belongings, but empty of its life.
He sulked upstairs and opened the door to his daughter’s room. No giggles greeted him like the thousand other times he woke her up at about this time. Not even the smell of dirty diapers assaulted his nose.
Where pictures of him, his wife, and their daughter once hung, now an empty wall faced him with its empty expression. The crib sat right where it always had, like a skeleton reminding him of the life that once occupied it. The armchair in the corner still bore the marks from all those sleepless nights he and his wife Isabelle rocked Junie back to sleep.
“Goodbye.” Tears filled his eyes, as he turned his back on those memories.
“Zeke?” Called his wife from downstairs.
“I’m up here.”
“It’s too dangerous to wait any longer, we have to go.”
“I know,” Zeke said in a hollow whisper.
Footsteps sounded and seconds later Isabelle appeared in the upstairs hallway.
Her pretty face bore the same grief he felt. “Come on. It’s time.” She pulled him into a hug and stroked his back.
Zeke nodded as more tears streamed. “Did we do something wrong? Was there a way to prevent this?”
“Don’t blame yourself, Hunny. No one could’ve predicted this.”
“I know, but we just assumed there’d be no problem. We bet everything on this lifestyle and then it just fell out from under us and now we are left with nothing.”
“Zeke, how could we know World War Three would come? Who could’ve predicted what it would do to our country?”
Through the window, their neighbor’s garage door opened and a truck pulled out. Miscellaneous trinkets and household items overflowed out of the truck bed. They didn’t bother shutting the garage door before they drove off and abandoned their property and possessions forever.
They probably didn’t bother locking the door either. Someone would break in and steal from them somehow, so why not give them an option that didn’t include smashing a window or breaking down the door?
How many more of their neighbors remained? Or were he and his wife the last?
Isabelle took him by the hand and led him downstairs. He looked back at Junie’s door one last time.
Just a month ago, every house on this street was peacefully occupied. Then the news came. With the weakened state of the national government after the war and the rise of gangs here in Denver, it was no longer safe to live in the suburbs.
To the north, most learned this news too late as gangs raided and attacked entire streets. Any who resisted were shot. Many who didn’t resist were still shot.
The kitchen floor squealed one last time under his foot.
But they couldn’t just leave, they had to flee. The bank still demanded their mortgage payment. With the average wage dropping as it was, making their monthly payments was already hard. Now to pay rent somewhere and a mortgage on a home they couldn’t live in would be impossible.
Isabelle opened the garage door where their SUV sat packed and ready to flee. To hide. To disappear somewhere that the bank would never find them, where they could make a new life with the little they could take with them.
Zeke plopped down in the driver’s seat. He smiled back at Junie, who laughed as if this were all a simple camping trip.
“Isabelle, someone did predict this all would happen.”
His wife gave a curious look. “Who?”
“Jesus. He said ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but instead store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.'”
“Zeke, there’s—”
“How many times did we say no to supporting a missionary because we didn’t have the money, but yet somehow we still managed a kitchen remodel, we re-floored our living areas, we bought newer and nicer furniture.
“How many times did we say no to church outreaches and instead spend all that time landscaping our backyard or painting our house?”
Zeke opened the garage door and backed onto the street. “Instead of storing up treasures in heaven, we invested in earthly things, and just as Jesus said, we are now reaping the consequences. All our treasures will be destroyed. It’s time we learn to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven . . .”
He looked back one last time at the house they invested so much time and money into. “. . . Where moth and rust do not destroy.”
Thank you for reading this Thrive Story. This story sets up my Thrive Series, which is set in the greater Denver area in 2055.
Please don’t think that my story is saying no one should buy a house or improve that house. I write this story to remind the American church that our homes, our property, our possessions are not certain. One day, they might be taken away.
Why should we invest all our time and energy in things that can easily be destroyed, when we can invest in eternity through following God faithfully, loving others, and sharing the good news with our friends and family.
Surely, over the 43 billion years we will spend in eternity, we won’t once think “I really wish I had bought a nicer house when I lived on earth.” No, instead we will be grieved and look back on our earthly lives and say, “If only I shifted my focus from the houses and the cars and computers to all those people I passed on the streets, in the schools, offices, and stores who are now sealed into an eternity of painful separation from our glorious God.”
So, let’s make these lives count. Let’s focus on eternity and live wilder.
If you this Thrive Story, I’d encourage you to check out Thrive Stories: The Last Communion
If you want to see how I’m planning to focus on eternity during 2021, check out my last post: My Phrase for 2021: Child Of God
