When you were a child, do you remember how everything seemed so big to you?  As you got older, things got smaller perhaps, but then you were able to travel to places like niagra falls, the grand canyon, the redwood forest, or see the vastness of the ocean, and again feel small if not smaller than you did as a child.  Each day, we walk down steps, subconsciously judging the distance from one step to the next to be small, and trust that we will survive the step.  What if your next step was over the ledge of the grand canyon?  That’s a big step!  Your decision not to take that step is based on your understanding of the vastness of distance, and the implications to your health if you take the plunge.

My question today is, have you allowed yourself to define time in the same way?  When you were growing up, a year seemed like such a long time.  As you grow older, time seems to speed up, but really it’s just that you are understanding time more clearly, and having lived through 20, 30, 60 years – one year seems like such a short time now.  If you ever struggle with pride (we all do) you can always be humbled by a man that was the wisest person who ever lived, Solomon, who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.  Here is what he has to say about our time here before we die.

Ecclesiastes 11:9-13 – “What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”

Further in James 4:14 – “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

Do you stand in awe of the idea of eternity?  If you can allow you mind to rest there on that idea, how would this change how you live?  Would your perspective on things change?  The Bible says that God has put into the heart of each of us the understanding of eternity, and we can live life boldly in wisdom from that understanding, or we can choose to ignore it.  We can live based on what is seen, or in faith on what is yet unseen.

My encouragement is to take stock of your life.  God is probably not calling you to give up all you have, or to move to another country to be a missionary (He might be), but what about smaller life decisions and how you spend your time each day?  Are you making short term decisions that when put up against the light of eternity, do not make sense?  We do not know when the Master will come for us, but we know that our time is fleeting in light of eternity.  My exhortation is to give praise to God for all He gives you, but do not seek or hold on so tightly to earthly things as if to forget that they hold no value in eternity.  Invest your lives joyfully in people, and God’s kingdom.  These are things that will be with you for eternity.

Grace and Peace,
Adam