Every now and then I have this really weird realization...
I am not a child anymore.
It hits me at random times.
Walking through security at an airport in another state, (or country) without my parents.
When I'm stopped at a red light, anxiously checking my clock to see if I will make it to work on time.
When I'm sitting by myself in a coffee shop working on a paper for school; rushing to meet the upcoming deadline.
When I am washing dishes, and smile at the cheery laughter of the girls that I nanny.
When I fill up my car with gas, and realize how many dollars it really takes to feed a mini van.
I am going to be 18 in a matter of weeks... I know that it is just a number, but numbers have always felt important to me.
I remember my seventh birthday, I felt so grownup sitting cross legged on the floor listening to the grown ups talk. I couldn't wait to be ten.
Ten came, thirteen was only three years away! (and in 8 years I could be... married!)
I remember turning thirteen, counting down the years until I would be sixteen.
Sixteen came and went, I was waiting for my eighteenth.
Seventeen was of no use to me. The number was an odd number, I preferred even numbers. Seventeen wasn't special like sixteen or eighteen. It just was a number.
They are all just numbers.
Someday I wonder if when I'm in heaven, I will think back to my life on earth and laugh about how obsessed with time I was. Or maybe I'll cry...
Time is important on earth, but is it really as important as I make it?
I am not promised tomorrow. I am only promised the moments that I have been given.
So often I waste my time dreaming, worrying or planning for tomorrow that I don't seek to glorify God in the moment that He has given me.
Matthew 6:34
"Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself."
James 4:13-15,17
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 this or that.” If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
1 Corinthians 10:31
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.
1 Corinthians 9:24-25
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
Matthew 6:19-21
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Are the moments in my life devoted to storing up treasure on earth, or in heaven?
Loving the world, or loving God?
I must be loving God and storing up treasure in heaven.
I am commanded to.
How often I fall short. Indeed, always in my own strength do I fall short, BUT GOD, great in mercy and abounding with steadfast love for the thousands saw fit to call me as His child.
Titus 3:4-7
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
God is the active in this passage. I am the passive. I am being acted upon, for assuredly, that which is dead must be made alive; it can not awaken itself.
Ezekiel 37:3-6
And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
When I become so obsessed with time on this earth, and the things that I hope for in the years to come, (like a family of my own, or knowledge of what my "next step" in life is.) I am not pointing to the name of the Living One who has breathed life into my dry bones for His purpose and glory.
Praise God for His patience and gentle mercy that rebukes and teaches those that He has redeemed instead of condemning us.
Romans 8:1-2
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Colossians 3:1-4
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Revelation 22:20
He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
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