The “matriarchs” (wife and children) of my family have assembled a group of nine pictures of me from early childhood to today and I am forced to comment on them:
It’s intriguing, to say the least, when I watch those pictures depicting my very own life from approximately three years of age to a grizzled old fellow of eighty-some years. It evokes all sorts of thoughts and wonderment at the mystery of life itself. I look at the first photo, that of an innocent fat-cheeked little kid and then I scroll from it through the successive stages of life and I can almost remember the addition of each gray hair and the accumulation of each new line in my face (almost). There were many gradual changes – personality -wise, physical and mental – that came with me on my journey from the womb to the tomb that lies not too far ahead.
It’s a weird feeling, this looking back on a life – my life – that has just about run its course. And everybody’s life will, soon or later, come to an end, either in peace or drowning in a sea of doubt, regret and fear.
There were many “metamorphoses” (that is really too fancy a name for the slow, gradual lifelong changes involved) as I slowly and unwittingly moved from decade to decade. There were changes for good and, sadly, changes that were not so good. There were too many instances of selfishness here and there just as there were a few shining examples of my letting the Jesus in me actually live through me.
But now all of that is in the past – the good, the bad, the indifferent – and I can do only two things: praise God for His blood that completely washes away ALL my sins of yesteryear and push ahead, determined to “redeem the time” I have left to me. With God it is not What did you do yesterday; it’s What are you doing for Me today? He is the only Person who can ask that question without seeming to be self-absorbed.
I can see it so clearly now. TODAY is the key. Today is all we have. Yesterday is gone, irretrievable; tomorrow is not yet here. God is saying to me and to you, “Now is the time acceptable.” He doesn’t want a refurbished yesterday that we cannot change nor does He want a tomorrow in which we can never raise a praise, utter a prayer or do a good deed. TODAY is all we have in which to please God and show Him our love by keeping His commandments. We are saved or lost by what we do in the present moment. TODAY is frankly all we have; we should make the most of it.
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