..or is it just me?
June 30, 2008 (Monday)
Today is the last day of June, 2008. Goodbye, June. Seems to me that we just got through saying, “Hello, June.” That’s the effect of aging, they say. The older we get, the faster time flies.
Throughout most of human history, people have used the moon as a calendar of sorts and the sun as a kind of clock, because God created a world without the timepieces that are so important to us these days. The question humans have asked for generations is, “What time is it?”
What time is it in your life? The Bible warns us not to take time for granted. “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do his or that'” (James 4:13-15 NIV).
Based on the facts of life as he perceived them at the time, the Psalmist declared, “The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength;yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10 NIV). Today’s life expectancy is longer than that, and life is not all trouble and sorrow. As of today, I like being alive, and I’m not in a hurry to fly away. As I heard someone say, “Heaven is my home, but I’m not homesick.” At least, not today. We’re on our way to heaven, as sojourners on earth, but God has never said to us, “You cannot enjoy the trip.” While acknowledging the terrible fact that many Christians are suffering for their faith at the hands of bigoted governments and individuals, we can never forget that it was Jesus who announced that He gives an abundant and joyful life to the one who follows Him.
Tonight at midnight we’ll say, “Hello, July.” We might add, “Nice to see you, July. How about hanging around? This may be the last time some of us get to see you, so don’t rush off.”