Because we have so many Native American friends in the Southwest, I've been watching that ravenous wildfire in eastern Arizona very carefully. When you evacuate, you never know if you'll have a home to come back to.
That was the situation for some First Nations (the Native people of Canada) young people who attended a Native youth conference I just spoke for in western Canada. Their homes had been in the path of fast-spreading fires in the Slave Lake area of Alberta. Because no one had been allowed back in to the fire zone yet, they truly didn't know what they would go home to.
But out of the Slave Lake disaster came a front page story that was more about hope than tragedy. A lady who watched as the fires moved closer and closer to her home knew an evacuation order might come soon. Which led to the soul-searching question, "What will I take with me when I go?" She made a choice that displayed some amazing priorities. She decided she would pack her vehicle with people, not possessions.
So when she fled town hours later, she did just that, taking a number of people who did not have vehicles of their own - including a woman with children. Leaving her stuff behind.
When she spoke with deep emotion at a special church service for the victims, she said, "I actually had joy in my heart...that there were people able to come with us. People are what matter."
Yes, they are. But in the push and shove of our fast-moving lives, it's easy to forget that. So many demands, so many deadlines, so much stuff. But nothing matters as much as the people in our lives. Stopping for them. Listening to them. Letting Jesus love them through us. They're the only thing in our life that is made in the personal image of God Himself. And the only thing that will last forever and ever.
So that lady's question is one we all need to ask. I know I do. "What will I take with me when I go?" Or, more accurately, who will I take with me?" God's ambassador, Paul, knew. Writing to those he'd introduced to Jesus, he said, "What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy" (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).
That's why God tells us to live to "snatch others from the fire and save them" (Jude 23). Because everything else is eventually going to burn.