1-4-04
Another year has come. How quickly they pass. It seems that we are struggling through
the holidays when we look around and it’s the middle of January. Everyone remarks about
how quickly time is passing. Remember the last time you saw a teenager you hadn't seen
since he was a child? Amazing how you expected someone much younger; it’s always that
way yet we are always surprised. I have been awed by the speed of light, but is not the
speed of time even more unbelievable?
So, it’s easy to see why so many rush around trying to see and do everything while they
still can. It doesn't matter that the speed prohibits enjoyment because the worst fate is not
failure to enjoy but failure to have done. No one wants to face death with regrets of having
missed some opportunity or some experience. Gusto grabbing sons of guns, we are.
I'm sure many Americans will be able to relax on that day, sure in their knowledge that it
would not have been possible to have crammed in one more thing. They are not too
concerned with how God will consider what they have perceived as the fullness of their
lives or they might fill them up with something else. Jesus did say work for a time is
coming when no man can work so the desperately quick pace may measure well against
God's plumb line. But, what are we doing that realistically demands such a pace? I think
Jesus had in mind the kind of work that does require the pace, even the desperation with
which we pursue trinkets and baubles. On your deathbed you may treasure the memory of
all that is gone and could not be preserved, but at the judgment you may regret all that is
gone that should have been preserved - and could have been preserved at the mere price of
that which could not have been.