There’s so much we should be doing, so much to think of, and so much that needs to be said. It’s easy to just want to stop and put it all off for another day.
We most of us are way too willing to postpone tasks and to think that there will come a day when we have more time to dedicate to such things. It usually involves items and tasks that require closer attention and which truly matter. We live in a society of quick decisions. Look at the issue, make the decision, take the action and then move on.
However, we all have those tasks that can’t be decided in a minute. We need to think and ponder, and for we Christians, to pray. Those are the hard things because they task our brains or our emotions or maybe even both.
My elder sister is still dealing with going through our mother’s belongings and she passed more than a decade ago. I understand the problems and could only wish I could help her. When I was able to travel, I didn’t know that she was still working her way through. It is a highly emotional task and one which might have been better shared. Still, perhaps she needs to piece together our mother’s life by herself as she makes her decisions about what stays or goes.
I had to confront this issue myself this past year. After nearly dying, I realized that I didn’t want to leave such a mammoth task to my husband or our children. Not only that, I wanted the joy of giving things to individuals who would appreciate them. Sometimes, it is strangers and sometimes it is a loved one. Whoever and whenever, the giving is better than the owning ever was.
When confronted with life and death, no possession ever crossed my mind. All I thought of was those people I loved and the security and knowledge that I would see so many of them again in heaven. There was sadness, too, when I thought of the ones that I could not be sure of.
I know from experience, when my son passed away, that having that knowledge helps with grief. I will not sugarcoat it, it is hurts like a fresh wound even twenty years later. But mixed in with the grief is the joy of knowing he’s waiting for me. No only him, but my mother and sister and even those children I lost in pregnancy. Especially the one that I didn’t lose naturally but in my stupidest, self-centered and most evil moment on this planet, I threw away when I was eighteen years old.
Before I was twenty years old, I had broken every one of the ten commandments both in thought and in deed. That makes me pretty much as bad as anyone else and much worse than most. God took that evil action and used it to bring me to my knees and, in the moment when I knew I could no longer live with myself from the guilt, to accept Jesus as my savior. I needed forgiveness that I could not provide to myself. Jesus loved me and accepted me when I felt myself to be the worst human being alive.
I look forward to meeting that child one day and thanking him or her for being the person who would lead me to Jesus Christ. I have two other children, besides my son and this child. I lost these two during the year before I became pregnant with my son. Turns out that I am severely lactose intolerant and when I would become pregnant, I would start drinking milk and would lose the baby about a week later. We figured it out in time and I was able to have three children, my son and two daughters.
As a mother, I would deal their day-to-day issues but didn’t give much thought to the eternal destiny of my children. I did make sure that they went to Christian schools when they were younger and that they had Bible groups they met with. What I never did was sit and talk to them about sin and salvation. I never explained to them about our savior and how much Jesus loved them.
When my son became ill at 17 years old, it struck me like a lightning bolt that I had neglected the most important thing I could have ever taught my children. I went to each in turn and asked them about the state of their soul. I was eternally grateful to those individuals who had cared for my children and that they had taken the time to lead them to salvation. That doesn’t excuse me.
It shows that even though I wasn’t engaged, God took seriously my first husband and I dedicating each of our children to him. He made sure that someone took on the job that we both failed to do.
I thought about it from time to time during the prior years, but I always thought I could find the time later. Later came too soon. If it had been left to me on my own, it might never had been done.
I have other things in my life that I postponed. I knew after my son passed away that I was supposed to write for God. I wrote one thing (a dedication to God about my son.) It was so taxing and emotionally exhausting that I stopped writing and instead asked a friend to write Christian messages for me to provide to others. He did so which was a true blessing but it also allowed me to avoid doing the task God was calling me to do.
Fast forward almost twenty years and here I am, finally doing what God has asked me to do. It has taken me way too long but I am here now. I am now finding the time to do the hard task. This is the task that left to myself, I would still try to postpone it until tomorrow. But I am not left to myself these days. God is directing and leading me daily.
When I sit to write, I am always sure that I won’t be able to or what I write will be gibberish. Somehow, God takes my confusion and turns it into the message he wants others to read. It’s not me, it’s him. If ever anything I have written means something to you, know that I was only the vehicle by which it was written. God is using my past, my life, my sins, and my salvation to write a message to you. My hope is that it brings God glory and that Jesus Christ is lifted up and you see that he is your savior. If anything else makes it through, I’m sorry for my human failing.
God is our father. He has a plan for the future. Jesus is our God in flesh and he was willing to sacrifice himself to give us a way to salvation. The Holy Spirit is God who indwells Christians. He is the one that gives us our daily guidance – that nudge, that thought, that small voice in our heads that tells us when we are thinking of going wrong or when we need help.
People talk about making bucket lists. These are lists of things that they want to do before they die. I don’t think many people would have a to do line to the effect of “Secure my eternal salvation.” Interesting, we can come up with a lot of things in this life that we want or even need to do, but the one that really matters is the one of your eternal destiny. Please, don’t postpone that investigation and decision.
Look to God and ask him to show you the way to know him. Ask him to show you that he is real and that Christ is your savior. He will always answer that prayer if it is prayed in earnest.
Today is the day because you are here. Tomorrow is not promised and it may never come.
James 4: 13-14
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.