“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Psalm 90:12
I accepted the Lord the first day, the first moment, I walked into a small church over 28 years ago, and I fellowshipped with, served with, prayed with, cried with, laughed with, and loved the people at that church for 23 years. Many of those dearly loved people, all of them much younger than expected, have since gone home to be with the Lord. A few of them just recently.
It’s so easy to fall into day to day living. Waking, working, eating, cleaning, phoning, watching, doing, sleeping… And all those things are fine. But somewhere in all the minutiae of life we can sometimes forget that life is very temporary. And very short. None of us knows when our time will come, or when the time will come for someone we love. We take for granted that we’ll all live to a ripe old age, but we might not. And having lost my dad and then my mother, I know that any age for someone you love is too soon.
But God knows when, and He reminds us through this Psalm written by Moses, a man who lived to be 120 years old, that life is fleeting, and that we should take great care in the way we spend each day. In every word we say, and don’t, in everything we choose to do, and don’t, we have the opportunity to honor and glorify the Lord.
And the people who have gone to heaven ahead of us remind us to live our lives for Christ to the fullest. We have been called for a very special purpose: to shout the Name of the Lord, with our voices, with our lives, with our love, to the whole world, and those nearest to us.
To praise and glorify His Name by living soberly, that is, always being aware of who we are in Christ, of our supreme privilege of giving our lives to Him daily so He can love others through us, draw others through us, comfort others through us, minister to others through us.
One of those people who has gone ahead just recently was there that morning I walked into church over 28 years ago. She sat a couple rows in front of me. I had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit the moment I walked into the room, and tears were already falling down my cheeks. The worship band started playing beautiful love songs to Jesus. The woman a couple of rows in front of me raised her hand to Him in loving praise and worship, and I knew I was surrounded by people who loved the Lord, and I knew I could love Him, too, and that He loved me. For me, after the life I’d had, that was no small thing.
I never told her that. But I bet Jesus is still telling her all the ways she blessed people without even knowing it. By just loving Him, she helped others love Him, too.
We may have one more day, or thousands. Is there any better way to spend each and every one of them than by loving Christ in all we say and do?
And for those who have gone ahead of us, yes it is painful, yes we grieve, but we remember this: “brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
What a glorious day that will be.
With much love and gratefulness,
