a moment
"man is like a breath;
his days are like a passing shadow."
~Psalm 144:4
it seems like the last two years have gone by in the blink of an eye. i'm not sure that i've done much good in that time. i believe that God can use even the poor things of my life for His glory, but if you took it on the whole, i feel like ephesian church in Rev. 2, knowing doctrine and striving for truth, but having lost my first love.
i randomly found an old note from last summer from a piper sermon on Romans 1 and the divide between eternal life and death. this kind of truth jerks me back into reality when i am lulled to sleep by my comfortable american life. it reminds me that my time is short.
and it's slipping away.
my grandmother is 89 years old. i visit her a few days a week for a half-hour or so, to break up her day in the nursing home with some company. i could say a lot about that, but one thing God has granted me through this is to really hate dying, the wasting away of life. and i know, death has lost it's sting because of victory in Christ. but death per se is still evil. it ought not be. it is the result of a sinful, fallen world. and one day, it will be no more, when sin is no more.
but for now, it's coming.
and i need to live in light of that. i need to be proactive. i need not to lose myself to the comfortable, fun things of this world. if i don't move now, i won't get where i'm going. it won't just happen; it's not inevitable. i refuse to stay where i am, for if i do, i disqualify myself. God's glory and my joy in Him are at stake. eternal things are in the balance.
it's time to move.
God, help me.
Labels: eternity, john piper, mortality, past, reminiscence
posted by John @ 2:29 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
from the afore-mentioned sermon:
"what we ought to be doing is dreaming a dream. we ought to be dreaming a dream. just think of it. here we all are, watching tv, watching our videos, and playing our games, or going out to eat, and just making ourselves more comfortable, more comfortable ... when we ought to be dreaming a dream about how to alleviate pain, and alleviate ignorance, and alleviate lostness, and alleviate misery! what do we do!? we read all our stock pages, and we read all our computer ads, and we read all the electronics ads, and we think about what we're going to get this Christmas, and we spend our evenings saturating the world into our brain, and wonder why we're not growing as Christians, or having a significant Christian life. oh, dream your dream! and if you would get heaven and hell clear to you, if this text would have its impact of eternity on you, oh! what lasting, strong, deep, unshakeable pleasures of significance could replace the banality and the emptiness of fun the next morning. tell me how it feels the morning after. real deep, real significant, real rich, real strong, real human, real God, real lasting, real eternity-related; it's all so small. you were not created to be small! you were not created to vegetate, to entertain endlessly right up through the coronary ward into eternity. you were made to live and suffer and die for King Jesus."
at 1:40am, whilst taking a break and eating some soup, not wanting to do my homework- this was very helpful. i knew i didn't read it until now for a reason.
and indeed. always helpful.
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