Over the past holiday season, a commercial by K-Mart stood out to me among all the others. The announcer advertised that “layaway” was available again to purchase gifts. I wondered if anyone under the age of forty understood the term or remembered when layaway was the norm.
I recall putting things on layaway before credit cards became popular in households. As a child, my mother took me shopping in Georke’s Department Store in Elizabeth, New Jersey. We carefully picked out an item, whether it was a gift for someone or a new dress for the holidays, and placed a deposit on it. We made periodic trips to the store to make payments until the item was totally paid for. On the last visit we could take it home. Our deposit was a guarantee that the store would hold the item we’d chosen, and once we paid for it, it would become ours.
Many years later, I sat in a counselor’s office after being abandoned by my husband after twenty years of marriage. I expressed my disillusionment to her, stating that I thought if I married a Christian man and served the Lord I was guaranteed a happy marriage and security in the relationship—for life.
I didn’t like her response: “There are no such guarantees. The only guarantee we have is that if we know Jesus, when we die, we will inherit the Kingdom of God.”
“No guarantees?”
“None.”
I left her office feeling depressed. But I felt better after reading Ephesians 1:13b-14 (NIV):
“Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”
I would love a guarantee that this life will be painless, but the Lord reminds us that we have a better guarantee than that. With the Holy Spirit deposited in our hearts, we are guaranteed eternal life, and the price for our salvation has already been paid with the blood of Jesus. We are bought with a price and we belong to God. We are His possession, and we will be with Him forever in heaven—and there will be no tears. In the meantime we have God’s promises of His abiding presence, His unfailing love, His favor, and His blessing.
A wonderful guarantee, both for this life and the next!
Have you sought the guarantee of a painless life? Have you become disillusioned in a relationship? Has your heart been broken by abandonment or betrayal? Remember that you are God’s child, and He will never leave you or forsake you (See Hebrews 13:5). Guaranteed!
Copyright, 2012, Annalee Davis
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