How many things are really eternal?

My local post office is small and utterly charming, cute enough to be on a post card. Actually, I think it has been, having stood in the center of our tiny town for quite a few decades. The ladies who run it are charming too, always welcoming and always amiable.

Six years ago the United States Post Office issued the first “Forever Stamps.” They had a picture of the Liberty Bell on them and cost 41c apiece, which was the going rate for a first class letter then. The idea behind a Forever Stamp was that it wouldn’t matter when you’d use it; it would always be “good to go.”

I still have a few of those original Liberty Bell stamps in the zipper pocket of my wallet, the ones I paid 41c for. If I stuck one on a letter today, it would be worth 46c, the amount required for first class mail. That was the whole idea. Invest in Forever Stamps and watch their value escalate. Although it’s only pennies, we Americans like that kind of thing.

Of course these stamps aren’t literally good forever.

If something has the ability to last forever, that means it’ll have no end but will go on eternally, and there are precious few things on that list:

God the Father, Son, and Spirit
Human souls
Spirit beings, as created by God
Emotions (love, joy, peace, etc.)
God’s Word
The New Heaven and New Earth

Stamps aren’t on the list, and it’s good for us to recognize how many of life’s other “essentials” aren’t there either. Of course we have a practical need for stamps and lots of other things, but the trick is in prioritizing them all. Which items occupy the top few slots?

For those of us who care about eternity, the top slots ought to closely resemble the list above, and not just in a “don’t-I-wish!” category. Our priorities should be looking back at us from our day-timers, our check books, and our conversations. If not, we ought to ask, “Why not?”

The majority of our world would say, “Why bother with all that spiritual stuff?” But that negates the unnumbered benefits of living a life submitted to God. And though I’m far from doing a good job of that, it’s worth a great deal to keep trying for even one glimpse of the Lord’s work in my life or in someone close to me.

By the way, recently our post-mistress told me that all the stamps sold at post offices these days are Forever Stamps. I love that and sometimes buy hundreds at a time, hoping they’ll last past the next rate rise.