There comes a time in every life I think, when we have the opportunity to contemplate how short the lives of our physical bodies seems to be. It really doesn't matter how old you are when you watch a loved one coming to the end of their span in this life, it seems that our desire at that time for them is almost always for more ...
More time - in good health, sharing the laughter, the conversation, ... the good times. But we're not the masters of time. Each one of us is given a predetermined portion of time to inhabit these physical bodies and no one can know in advance exactly when that time will run out. It may be very short or very long and no matter how long it is, it never seems to be enough in the minds of those who are left behind.
But what really happens when the figurative hour glass runs out? What will have mattered then? When the last grain of sand has fallen - in the very next moment for that soul who's time has expired ... what will the accounting look like? Take me for example. When my time expires, will it matter whether my physical body was handsome or disfigured as it returns to dust and I stand raised up before the Lord without it? Will it matter how much wealth I had accumulated after I've been forced to leave it all behind and stand facing Him? Does being socially popular or famous in certain social circles count in His tally of my life? In that instant will it matter if I were barely even known by other people or maybe even shunned? What is it that I will carry forward when time in this life is up and I stand face to face with my Creator? ... perhaps only the record of whether or not I've fulfilled the very purpose for which I was created.
I've failed in this life many times and over a variety of subjects. I can look back on a life that when compared with both the standards of men and the standards of God, is filled with mistakes, misjudgments and carefully calculated, yet unnecessary risks. I don't have fancy expensive things. I'm not famous or highly regarded in social circles, but I have something that very sadly many people in the world today don't.
You see, I have memories as a young boy of a bible that continually lived on an end table in the livingroom of our house growing up. I have memories of a devoted woman working her way along a path in search of the fulfillment of her purpose, her eyes searching for long periods drawing in every word from the pages of that bible that lived on the end table. I remember seeing her with her eyes closed in fervent prayer, spending time communing with the very one she would stand before one day in that moment when her time would run out ... and it stuck with me.
It left an impression that along with her continual efforts to reflect the grace, love, teaching and perseverance of the one she calls Master, helped to set a path before my own feet with a desire to follow and search out. It's been a tradition among those who have served the Lord from the time that Adam and Eve began to share what they learned of Him with those they worked to raise up to follow them. As time has passed and more was learned there was so much more to share, but it all related and continues to relate to one thing - fulfilling the purpose for which we, the human race, were created.
In that instant, when the last grain of sand falls from my hour glass, only one thing will be reckoned. there's only one thing I will have to carry forward with me. It will be the accounting of what I have done in an effort to fulfill that singular predetermined purpose - nothing else. All that I strived to gain, all that I worked so very hard and so very long for outside of that purpose in this physical life will be smoke. It will count for nothing - zero.
But I do possess something that so many other fathers and mothers also have the ability to give their own children. In the physical world that we momentarily inhabit, it can pale in competition with so many other distractions, but it's the only thing that will survive our bodies with us - and in the end it will be the only thing that counts. It's something that's been passed down through the generations since the time of Adam and Eve.
I have the memories of a faithful and devoted mother who helped me to understand my one purpose in this life. While others are searching for the meaning of life and never finding true lasting fulfillment - I have it. Because of a mother who led by the faithfulness of her example, I can know in my heart that not only do I have the reward of the relationship that I found on the path that her example led me to along the way, I know that I will not stand before the Lord in the fateful moment that my time has expired holding out now empty hands that were once filled with smoke. I will stand before Him holding the record, how ever it may read, of my effort to obediently satisfy His intention to create me. I will know Him instantly ... and He will know me lovingly.
We were created by God to be companions of God - in relationship with Him for His pleasure. Our children were created for that very same singular purpose. Do they know it? Do they see it exampled in us and being written in the record of our lives? Are we fulfilling our sacred role - a gifted and divine responsibility, to raise those in our care for Him as His companion? Our examples will not be perfect (mine are not), but His grace will stand in the gap of our failures as long as we are faithful to our given purpose. His perfection, as He abides within us will be the character that they will work to replicate for the next generations if we will submit with sincerity and intimate knowledge of Him toward His purpose.
Proverbs 22:6 KJV
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
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