A final lesson from the old high school

As I watched recently – along with the rest of the community – the demolition of the old high school building, I thought of how sad it was to witness. If the building had been remodeled, it could have been a centrally located showpiece for our community. But when those plans failed and it increasingly digressed into an eyesore, its ultimate fate became long overdue.

Several thousand students graduated from the old high school in its 70 years of use. The teachers and administrators used the classrooms and hallways to educate the teenagers of Ritzville and helped lay the foundation for their lives as adults.

Though I didn’t grow up in Ritzville (if I did I would have been part of the old school’s very last graduating class), I have taken away a final lesson from the destruction of the dilapidated structure.

The New Testament includes a verse, which says, “If the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Corinthians 5:1). The Apostle Paul’s words tell me that though my body only exists for a limited amount of time on earth, I have the hope that God has in store for me a permanent dwelling with him in heaven. This promise comes through faith in Jesus Christ, as Jesus said of himself, “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (John 11:25).

Just as I’m not sure what will become of the property where the old high school stood for over 100 years, it’s hard to imagine what this new heavenly “building” will be like. But when the Apostle Paul contemplated the comparison between the two, he said the heavenly situation will be “better by far” (Philippians 1:23).

Though the demolition of the school building is a reminder that the things of earth are temporal, we have this future promise wonderfully put in another way: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).