Time is Flying

2015-11-15 Pastors Corner

Here in the Tropics, we have few seasonal markers to tell us what’s coming. Standing in the checkout line, I looked up and realized that I was staring at a Christmas candy cane. I thought, “Why do they have that out?” Then I remembered that it is almost Christmas. Yikes! How did that sneak up on me? Well … I had no cooling weather and changing leaves. No TV at the condo advertising Holiday entertainment. No Black Friday circulars in the mail … no mail (that’s still wonderfully weird). Here in Panama, I’m going to have to be more attentive to the passing of time.

Most of us have hit the age where it’s starting to be more evident that life is flying (has flown) by. Our joints know the weather is changing before we do. Our Doctors are younger than we are. We wonder if the change that fell out of our pocket is worth picking up. We’re the target audience for life insurance … NO MEDICAL EXAMINE REQUIRED! There are signs. And yet … many live as if they had all the time in the world. Moses wrote this ancient wake up call,

Lord … You turn men back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.” For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning— though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered. (Psalm 90:3-6)

In a society that does all it can to stave off or at least ignore the brevity of life, these words might be called morbid cynicism. But God’s Word calls them “wisdom.” Psalm 90 encourages us to count the days of our ephemeral existence and run for refuge to the Eternal God. It culminates in this humble prayer,

Teach us to number our day aright that we might gain a heart of wisdom. (Verse 12)


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