Bus Stop

Sitting at a bus stop on green plastic bench with countless globs of used gum stuck beneath the edge, the wind blows cold and gritty down the street, not at all hindered by the plexiglass shelter sporting badly spelled insults and out of date advertisements...if you are lucky enough to be at a stop that has a shelter at all. Waiting for a bus that may or may not get there on time. It isn't what I would consider a comfortable, or even a safe, place to be. Fortunately, stays at bus stops are inherently transient. They are waypoints, not end points of journeys.

This world is much the same. It is a waypoint, transient and not terribly comfortable. In fact, sometimes, it can be downright painful, sitting in the cold and waiting for a bus that you thought was supposed to be coming. It isn't where you want to be. It isn't home. And if that were all there was in this life, I would be hopeless to the point of despair. 

The greatest thing about this world is that it isn't all there is. We wait at bus stops because we have somewhere else to go. Somewhere infinitely more pleasant and warmer. Somewhere we are meant to be. It may take a while to get there. And while you are here, you will almost definitely end up on a route you hadn't planned on taking either because you read the little colored lines wrong or caught the wrong numbered bus or simply because whether you wanted to go there or not that was where you were meant to be. Certainly, it sometimes feels like you'll be here at this particular stop forever. But it isn't permanent. Nothing here is. And that is the greatest hope I have.

Hebrews 12:25-29

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.