A Birthday Thought

I turn another year older here in a few days.  It makes one a wee bit nostalgic and reflective at this point in life.  

I can’t help but feel like life has become a bit like standing on the beach below the wrack-line (that shelf of sand where all the flotsam washes up at high tide) watching the tide rise.  I know the tide that is age will one day rise and overtake the little sand castle that is my life.  The wind that is time used to be little more than a zephyr that barely stirred the sand at my feet but now has become a strong beach wind blowing sand in my eyes.  I know from my older friends that in twenty or thirty years it will become a gale that whistles in my ears.  I find myself more and more trying to grab hold of that wind and gather it up.  Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 1:2 that we strive after things in life to make us happy which is little more than “chasing the wind”.  I think Solomon knew what I mean about standing on that beach trying to catch the wind. 

Life does not wait around for us and time keeps moving.  I try to make use of all the minutes that come my way, but there are not enough moments in life to do all the things I want to do.  Maybe that is what makes time seem to move quicker now that I am older.  When I was young there were far fewer thing demanding my time and attention.  I had the leisure to be occasionally bored… sigh, I remember “bored”...I miss it sometimes.  

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...a chasing of the wind” says Solomon.  He is hoping to stir us to ask whether our use of time is valuable or wasteful.  Is our use of life’s resources well stewarded or careless?  Time, energy, attention, focus, priorities, money...the list of resources goes on and on but time is the one resources we cannot make more of.  How are you spending the time that whistles around you?  Are you focussed on things that matter most?

Faith, family, work.  That should be the way our lives are ordered.  If I look at how your time is ordered would I see faith, family, and work represented correctly? Or would the balance be out of order?  As we sprint toward the Season of Lent God gives us the opportunity to think deeply about these things and question whether we are chasing the wind or standing firm on the rock of our faith. 

There is always time to change...no matter how fast time seems to move or how the tide of age creeps...there is always time to change.


Blessings, 
Pastor Rus