It's About Time

Death is a point in all our lives that we are rushing towards at unbelievable velocity. Our lives are but a vapor in the grand scheme of things, and it will soon arrive: The moment of truth, the point of no return, the true final frontier. The second in your life where you will honestly look back and ask yourself if what you really did mattered at all. What was your goal? What was your highest priority? Did you spend your time on yourself or others? Did you matter at all?

Of all the gifts that we as the human race have been granted, our most precious by far is time. With time you have the opportunity to pursue every other goal. With time you can make a difference. With time you can search out who you are. With time you can make the choices that will change not only your own life but others around you as well and believe it or not, we are constantly hurtling through this resource at the speed of light, and it's not an infinite supply. As hard as it may be for you to put this thought in your head (I have trouble wrapping my mind around it sometimes as well), you will one day run out of time, and you will die. God will decide that you've had enough heartbeats, and you will breathe your last. Either on a deathbed from old age, tomorrow as you step off the street corner and into the path of an oncoming steamroller, or a myriad of other ways, the question is not an if, it's a when. Are you prepared for that day? Are you preparing for it in any way? Have you even thought about it at all?

What does your life revolve around right now? Do you focus on yourself all the time, or others? A better question, is what you're living for right now worth dying for? Would you lay down your life for the purpose of your life? If we cannot say that we would die for what we are living for, chances are we're living our lives to seek out our own selfish agendas. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I find that in my neutral state of mind, I tend to stray towards seeking personal comfort and security. Now, there's nothing wrong with either of those two states per say, but should pursuing them be the sole purpose of my life? Imagine all my friends and relatives standing around at my funeral if I pursued these objectives. What would they say about me if I left that kind of legacy? Or what if I pursued power? Wealth? Material possessions? Fame? Intellect? These are all temporary things, and what good are they in the end?

"Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He can take with him nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hands." (Ecclesiastes 5:15)

The "religious" aspect of where I'm taking this should be obvious by now. You are going to die, and when you do, you will have to give an account to my God on how you used the gift of time He gave you. No amount of intellectual "logic" games you play inside your head will ultimately get you away from the truth. You will meet your Maker, and He will judge you on your life. If you died tomorrow, which is entirely possible, what would He say to you, especially in light of the sin post I wrote earlier? "Well done, good and faithful servant"? "Away from me you evil doer, I never knew you"? "Why did you not even attempt to seek the truth in your lifetime"? "Why did you ignore Me when I spoke to your heart"? "Why did you turn a deaf ear to My servants when they tried to warn you?" "Why did you not even care?"

It's your life, and everybody else is going to try to tell you how to live it. Here's my input, do the research on spiritual matters yourself. Read the book of Matthew found in the New Testament, and see what you actually think. Examine both sides unbiasedly, I believe you'll find that many Christian doctrines are a lot stronger than secularists would have you believe. When you do finally discover an answer, let it impact your life. Let it change you, and live your life in light of what you find. If Christianity is really baseless, then you have nothing to fear in reading a bit of Scripture. And yes, I am going to close this post with a quote by John Piper.

"I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Readers Digest, which tells about a couple who "took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball, and collect shells." At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn't. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life - and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: "Look, Lord. See my shells." That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don't buy it. Don't waste your life."

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot