Greetings, brothers and sisters! Recent events have given me time to reflect on my life and how it is supposed to matter. So here it goes.
If we consider the size and timeline of the universe, we would feel very insignificant. We are just a speck in time and space. Centuries, kingdoms, armies, and civilisations have come and gone. So many people have lived and died – did their lives matter at all?
Even our ancestors had their time but also perished. We probably knew our grandparents, and we would be fortunate to have known our great-grandparents, but that is more or less the limit we would have known our ancestors before us. That also holds true for us down the line – we would be blessed to see our grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, but the generations after that would never know us – at least in this lifetime.
Would our lives truly matter if we were here today and gone tomorrow? Yes, our lives are like water drops in the ocean or flashes of light in an array of fireworks – here for now but forgotten soon. Death has a 100 per cent winning record and will continue to do so.
“O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Surely, a man goes about as a shadow! Surely, for nothing, they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.
Psalms 39:4-7 (ESV)
Hope and everlasting friendship
Spiritually speaking, our short lives are an opportunity to have an everlasting friendship with God through Jesus Christ. God’s promise of eternal life means death is a passageway to live forever. We are not just a flash in a pan or a drop in the ocean. Before us lies an ideal life that was meant to be before sin and death came into the picture. We will have a life of joy and peace with God without pain and suffering with those who follow God. The best is yet to come.
If that is so, what should we do with our short earthly life?
A poem goes like this:
“I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything,
but I can do something.
What I can do, I should do,
and with the grace of God, I will do.”
There is a story of a woman walking along a beach filled with thousands and thousands of stranded starfish. She sees a boy in the seashore. The boy sees the starfish drying out and dying in the sun, so he picks one up, goes to the water’s edge, and throws the starfish into the sea. Then he goes and picks up another dying starfish, walks back to the edge of the crashing waves, and throws it into the water as well. And the boy continued on and on. The woman sees him doing this and is bewildered – “What difference can he make on a beach filled with thousands of dying starfish? Surely, he cannot save all of them,” she thinks. Slightly annoyed, she goes to the boy and asks if he believes what he is doing will make any difference. The boy bends over, picks up another starfish, walks to the water’s edge and hurls it into the sea, saying – “Well, I made a difference to that one!”
May we live our lives making a difference to everyone around us, especially our families and friends. May we rescue as many starfish as we can in our lifetime. May we all influence them to draw close to God, the influence that really counts. Ultimately, we all have an eternal destiny – may it be the right one for us and the people who matter to us.
“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people; by all means, I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the Gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”
1 Corinthians 9:22-23
Top image: photo of starfish on beach with father and kids playing in background, from Bigstock.com, © by omgimages, stock photo ID: 50068997. Used with permission.
Tom Caballes is a National Coordinator of the Lamb of God, a community of the Sword of the Spirit with seven branches located throughout New Zealand. Tom and his wife Mhel and their two daughters [with his son-in-law and grand-daughter] live in Wellington, New Zealand.