Camping
Camping is always an adventure.
For starters, you never know how things will turn out with the Kansas weather. So, before we go, we check the weather reports and do our best to go at a time when the conditions will likely be most cooperative. Even so, sometimes the meteorologists do make mistakes…shocking, I know. But, if it looks reasonably safe, we will pack up everything we need and set off to leave behind most of our modern conveniences and set out for the great outdoors.
A good camping experience is truly memorable and enjoyable. We try to find a good campsite and hopefully an area that isn’t too crowded. Once the tent is set up, we then will enjoy hiking, biking, swimming, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, and sitting around the campfire. It doesn’t even need to be a long time to be a good time and to make some good memories.
A couple lessons you learn from camping:
Everything about camping is temporary. Temporary shelter, kitchen and sleeping quarters are all a part of the experience. Nothing about a campsite is intended to be permanent. When you leave, everything at your site is packed away or thrown away. You don’t get too attached to anything at your campsite, because you are leaving soon. It isn’t home.
Nothing about camping is comfortable. I’m not talking about comfortable camping or “Glamping” I mean true camping (aka, “roughing it”). Even on the best of days of camping, you will still fight off bugs and pests. A sleeping bag never provides you the quality of sleep you have in your own bed. And you can only eat food that is easily transportable and that doesn’t require any more refrigeration than ice.
Whether you are a rustic, outdoors type, or your idea of “roughing it” means drinking Folgers instead of Starbucks, as Christians we are all “camping.”
This world, as beautiful as it is, is not intended to be a permanent place. “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.” Some day, according to Peter, God is going to use everything in the world as kindling. So it stands to reason that we should never get too attached to, distracted by, worried about, or caught up in the things of this world. “The world and its desires pass away…”
Remember, we are camping in this world. It is not home. God never intended it to be.
Someday, all your things will be packed up, your tent rolled up, and you’ll leave. If this world is your home, that’ll be a scary day. If this world isn’t your home, you’ll welcome your true home like you do at the end of a long, tiring camping trip.
So, enjoy your camping trip. Make the most of it.
But do make sure you are ready to go home.