In these early days of 2009, I have one question that has been burning in my mind: Where is my spaceship? In my youth, wasn’t I promised a spaceship by the time we reached the 21st century? I was raised on cartoons like “The Jetsons,” where they lived in a world with personal spaceships and robotic maids. Now I am wondering where my spaceship is. We are still lumbering around in four-wheeled, gas-powered automobiles. We haven’t even perfected an electric car yet, much less one that actually flies. So I am a little disappointed, to say the least.
Back in the 1950s and ’60s, there was all this talk of the future. I remember going to Disneyland, where there was an exhibit called “The House of the Future,” presented by the Monsanto Chemical Company. It even featured some new futuristic device that would cook our food in just seconds. Today it seems slow. We call it the microwave. I think there was a utopian dream in the 1950s and 60s in which we thought things would be better in the future, that technology would bring about the solutions we were looking for.
Of course, we have lived long enough to know that this is not the case. We know that technology won’t save us. Politicians won’t save us. No manmade solution will bring the answers we are looking for. Only Jesus Christ can do that. One day He will, too, when He returns to this Earth to establish His kingdom.
In light of this, how should we be living, knowing that we are here on this Earth with a God-given task to fulfill, a job to do, a life to live? Our desire should be to have lives that are lived well.
As we come to the end of one year and the beginning of another, we often start with resolutions. It seems that most people have resolutions relating to either losing weight or getting in better shape, and I have to admit that I am one of those people myself. But I hope that is not the only thing you have resolved to do.
Consider some of the resolutions made by Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan preacher who was famous for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”:
- Resolve never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends for the glory of God.
- Resolve never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
- Resolve to live with all my might, while I do live.
- Resolve never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
- Resolve to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
How do your resolutions compare? Imagine if 2009 were your last year on planet Earth. Would you live it any differently than you lived it in 2008? This is something we have to come to grips with, because we need to face the fact of the brevity of life on Earth.
Maybe it seems morbid to you to think about your own death one day. But it is not morbid; it is realistic. You may have many, many years ahead. And then again, you may have one year ahead, or part of a year ahead. One person wrote about the passing of time, “How will the value of your days be measured? … Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It is not a matter of circumstance but of choice. Choose to live a life that matters.”
The tragic thing is there are many today who live silly, shallow, wasted lives. As Daniel said to King Belshazzar, “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27 NIV). Normally, when we get on a scale, it usually says we weigh too much. But when Belshazzar stood on God’s scale, he was a lightweight. His life was without substance; it was wasted. And there are a lot of people who simply waste their lives.
As tragic as it is – and it is very tragic – a life cut short is not the greatest tragedy of all. And who are we to say that a life is cut short? Is not God the one who determines the length of our days? The Bible tells us there is a time to be born and a time to die. It doesn’t tell us when that time is. The Bible also says that our times are in His hands: “Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed” (Job 14:5 NIV). That is why it is silly to worry about the length of your life, because, as Jesus said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:27 NIV)
Who knows how long we will live? We may live long lives. Or we may live short lives. We may live many years. Or we may live few years. We may have one year. Or we may have mere months, mere weeks, or mere days. No one can say. But here is what I believe. If I live each day as unto God, then I don’t worry about how long my life will be. Recognizing the brevity of my own life is not a morbid obsession with death; it is just a reality check. I will die one day, but I don’t know when. So I want to make every day count.
More tragic than a life that is not lived as long as we would like to see it lived is one that is largely squandered and wasted. So don’t live in the pursuit of nothingness. Don’t waste your life. Or to narrow it down, don’t waste your year. Or to be more specific, don’t waste today. Make every day count. Make every month count. Make this coming year count. Live your life well.
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