"For What is Your Life?"

Last night it was my privilege to attend a VBS as guest speaker. As I was listening to the announcements they were asking prayers for a family whose child had recently drowned. That was the fourth family this summer that I had heard of in this area that had lost a child to a drowning accident. After that announcement of course, the rest of the evening proceeded as planned.

When I was in the middle of thyroid cancer treatments I thought about death quite often. One of the main things that kept coming to me was the fact that if I died, life for everybody else would go on. Some people might be sad for a while, but life is meant to be lived, and people are going to do just that.

So I have been thinking about these families who are so devastated by the loss of their children, realizing that the rest of the world is going to go about their business.

We need to remember that the time to make our mark is today. Most of us are not going to rewrite history. We are not going to be remembered outside of our families and local communities. In 200 years, our own families might not even know we existed, and they may never visit our graves. This is why the impact we are supposed to be making is an eternal one.

A few decades from now, your job will not matter. The ball games your children played in will not matter. Where you went on vacation will not matter. A good number of the things that occupy the majority of our time will not matter. We need to ask ourselves if the energy we are expending at this hour is really going to make a difference in the end.

James wrote, "For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time, then vanishes away" (James 4:14). Because life is so short, the difference that we are making MUST be an eternal difference. We have a great responsibility, to not only make our calling and election sure, but also to change the eternal destination of someone else.

Is your life about this world, or about heaven? Are your efforts all for here, or all for there? Are you making an impact that is going to last forever?

For what is your life?

"While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." ~ 2 Corinthians 4:18