Here Today... - Rev. 18:14, 18

"'All the fancy things you loved so much are gone,' they cry. 'The luxuries and splendor that you prized so much will never be yours again. They are gone forever.'" Rev. 18:14

"... And now, in a single hour it is all gone." Rev. 18:18

I have often marveled at the Bible's description of Babylon. This place was almost mythical in its luxuries and beauty -- there was nothing like it in all the world. I am sure that its people and its rulers thought themselves as having "made it," that what they had would live on forever. Yet, as was prophesied, there is NOTHING left of it today. I believe God uses Babylon as a visual lesson for all of mankind. Here is a place of wealth and luxury unlike anything most of human history has ever experienced. Yet, without God it is utterly worthless -- gone "in a single hour." What will I trust in? The temporal nature of the world or the eternal kingdom God has created for me? When positioned like this, the question seems almost rhetorical, yet when living life everyday it is not nearly as easy to recognize how far into Babylon I have traveled.

God, I KNOW that the world I live in is but a nanosecond in your eternal time line, but it is all I know. Please forgive my short-sightedness and lack of vision, and keep me focused on your voice in my life everyday.

Today's reading: Ez. 33-35; Rev. 18