What Can I Take with Me?

Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. Genesis 5:5

I’ve often said that I’m thankful for the miserable consequences of my addiction. Without consequences, I’d still be enslaved. What if I’d have never found recovery though? What if I got to the end of my days only to find that I’d wasted my life, being wasted? The idea of the wasted life haunts me because I feel like it was a very real possibility. In recovery now, I find myself desperately thankful for the new life. Knowing the misery of addiction, I now desire to help those who also need the new life. This mission gives me tremendous purpose and meaning.

This was missing from my life previously. My greatest life problem hasn’t been drugs. That’s just been the most obvious manifestation of my problem. My life problem is that I do what I want. Yes, I believe in God, but it’s my nature to live for my now appetite. The problem is that my now appetite is that it is usually antithetical to the life God desires for me. God wants me to live for eternity – for those things which truly matter. My appetite though, simply wants food, sex, and drugs. That’s why I’m thankful for my addiction and subsequent consequences. As miserable as it was, it’s what it took to set me on a different path, attempting to live each day for that which truly matters.

Today’s passage is a reminder of this. In the fifth chapter of Genesis, we’re provided the genealogy of Adam through Noah. Adam lived 930 years, and he died. Seth lived 912 years and he died. Enosh lived 905 years and he died. You get the idea. Though they lived nearly a thousand years, their entire lives are summarized in a few words, all ending the same – And he died. Everyone dies. Though our time on Earth is all we know now, our years on Earth are but a blip in the grand scale of eternity. Tragically, those things we strive for our entire lives are often completely meaningless. We can’t take our stuff with us.

So, what can I take with me? What truly matters in light of eternity? If I want to live for eternity, I must start by investing every day in my relationship with God. It is only him that I find eternal life, which starts here and now. In this new life, I find joy, purpose, and meaning as God directs me to invest in the lives of those around me. Stuff doesn’t last forever, but souls do. As I’ve found new life in my faith and recovery, I desire to point others in the same direction. In doing so, I find that I’m investing in that which lasts forever.