Camp Devotions, Part 4

Overcoming this World
Jarod Anderson


“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)


Our world can be really frustrating sometimes. How can we live in a world that gives us both nature’s beauty and natural disasters, joy and heartbreak, love and hatred? It seems that just when this world seems good, we see even more of the bad.

In C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, Aslan has just destroyed Narnia, and taken his people to a new world, one that looks and feels like Narnia, only better:

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right forehoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:
“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia so much is that it sometimes looked a little like this.”

That’s it! The key to overcoming this world is to live for heaven! Do you long for heaven? Do you think you’ll feel at home when you get there?

Read Psalm 84:1-4, and verse 10.

What does the writer of this song want? What is his deepest desire?

Read Matthew 6:19-21
Take some time to think about your life. What do you really treasure? What do spend most of your time, energy, and money doing?

How would your life be different if your soul yearned to be with God?