One of my teachers once said that we were “spies in the enemy’s domain.”. And how true is that? We do not belong to this world. We are called to belong to the Father and set our sights on our Heavenly home. 

Eternity seems like such a distant concept to us. But compare it to the present–our entire life on this world is but an instant in the age to come. And when we finally get to eternity, we’ll wonder why any of us thought it mattered as much as we did in the first place. Heaven is infinitely better than we can even imagine.

Yes, we are spies, and our mission is to get ourselves and others to the Kingdom of Heaven. But oftentimes the biggest obstacle to our task at hand isn’t external. We’re not faced with bombs and lasers and squads of guards trying to kill us. Instead, our greatest stumbling block is… ourselves.

We were assigned a mission in a world that can drown out the sound of eternity if we let it. Ten thousand worries and anxieties can be found at any given moment, and we often don’t think to ask for the grace we need to see reality. And the mission is longer than we give it credit for–it isn’t a simple in-and-out. We have to work hard to achieve the goal. So, to hide from all of the fears and stress, and to give ourselves pleasure in the midst of the hardships, we turn to the very world we’re trying to overcome. We give in to our greed, our pride, our selfishness, because in the moment it is more agreeable to align with the world than it is to fight against it. This is how we fall. The spies sent to call people away from the enemy turn themselves away from the thing they’re preaching.

And it is such an easy trap to fall into. It is tempting–belonging feels good. Giving in to our pleasures feels good. And the human mind is incredible, so it’s not much of a hardship to convince ourselves that we aren’t doing anything wrong.

“God wants us to be happy,” we say. “He wants us to take care of ourselves. We’re not turning away from Him.” And that may be true in some cases. God does want us to be happy, and He does want us to take care of ourselves. But at what point does being happy in the present life become more important than being God’s faithful servant in eternity?

So, remember the reason we’re here in the first place. It is to glorify the Father and call more and more people to increase His Kingdom. When the world becomes a temptation, turn to eternity. That is our hope. This life is not the end, and one day our trials will eternally distant. 

We are spies in this world, and we know why we’re fighting. So don’t give up.

“Heaven is a city on a hill, hence we cannot cast into it; we have to climb”. –Ven. Fulton Sheen.

“Life is passing, Eternity draws nigh: soon shall we live the very life of God.” –St. Thérèse of Lisieux.