Dust and Ash

Fact: eventually, the dominion of mankind will end. All the work we've done to build civilizations; everything we've ever done to build a lasting legacy; all the monuments to our conquering of nature, or gravity, or plain ol' adversity... all of it will fade away. Gone. Turned to dust. Everything that has a beginning has an end; this is the way of nature.

But.

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,

“All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,

but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1 Peter 1:23-25a)

It's amazing to think about it, but the Word of God is indeed Eternal. It is without beginning, written by God since before Time began, and breathed into the world of men through the lungs of prophets and sinners. The Word of God, personified by Christ, the Salvation of Man, endures forever. 

Think of the implications of 1 Peter, Chapter 1. God has taken man, finite and small, and lifted him -- lifted us! -- out of our mortal existence, and into His eternal one! 

Those stresses we have day to day? That constant struggle to make something significant of ourselves on this world? Ultimately, it's meaningless. The greatness of nations, the legacy of kings, all of human history is dust and ash when stacked against Eternity with the Creator.

So the question I must ask myself, then, is for what purpose do I strive in my daily life? Am I working for things that are temporary? Or is my focus on the Eternal? Am I building my own glory, which will whither and fall like the flowers of the field; or am I concerning myself with the Glory and Word of the Lord, which endures forever?