Seek Me While There is Still Time
About a week ago I felt God speak to me to “Seek Me while there is still time.” This has made me think about how short and fleeting life is. I believe He is calling me to look at life from a different perspective, one with the end in mind, removing complacency and establishing my priorities so to more fully order my life around Him.
Every workday I make my way across a bridge that crosses over highway 35W near where the bridge collapse. I see pieces of concrete jetting up that used to be part of the bridge. It is a sad sight as I pass and think about the people who suddenly lost their lives just innocently making their way across. They thought they had their whole lives ahead of them when suddenly it ends. The earth breaks beneath their feet and swallows them up. No more chances, no more opportunities, no last moments with the family. Who knows the worries on their minds, the thoughts of family and friends or plans they were making just before their lives ended.
Stolen. They are stolen from their family and friends, stolen from their dreams and plans, stolen from precious moments and memories. No longer do the worries of the world bother them. No longer do they need to worry about the report the boss wants on their desk the next morning. No more fights with the spouse. It is a reminder that life is precious, way to short and ends suddenly and unexpectedly.
As Max Lucado so eloquently writes in his book Facing Your Giants, “Death robs you.” It “amputates a limb of your life.” It causes incredible pain as you face the frailty and sanctity of life. No more time or opportunities to cherish the moments together… time has run out.
In Leap Over a Wall, Eugene Peterson talks about death. He writes that learning how to live “involves a good deal of meditation and consideration of death.” He goes on to say that we diminish our lives if we avoid the subject and don’t give it our full attention. “Denial of death is avoidance of life.”
Many struggle with, deny, and dehumanize death. The truth is that it is scary for most people. As Eugene Peterson writes, in the death of David, Abishag was a “witness to the sanctity of death, a sacred presence to David in his dying – and as such a quiet rebuke to the others in the story who respond to David’s death as either a problem to be solved, an opportunity to be seized, or a difficulty to be negotiated.” She was just with David as he spent the last days of his life. She nursed him and kept him warm, enjoying his company as she watched him slowly fade away.
As Eugene writes, having people in our lives is inconvenient. It interferes with our time and our propensity for want to live more as gods and goddesses than merely humans. As he writes, “These limitations aren’t minor inconveniences: they’re major and unavoidable conditions in the all-demanding exercise of being human.” He goes on to say that “ridding ourselves of inconvenient lives that seem to interfere with our living results not in more life for us but less.” As he notes, it is giving dignity to death and honoring the limits that deepen our lives.
So what can I learn from this?
Life is precious.
Family and friends, while sometimes frustrating, inconvenient, and time consuming, are what living life is all about. So much time we waste on things that are unimportant and miss great opportunities to love those in our lives. We start thinking that we will always have more opportunities to spend time with the ones we love so we don’t take full advantage of the time in the moment. We become busy and distracted too easy. We pursue our own ambitions and significance. We often ignore death and bury our heads in the sand. We think what is really important is getting things done… they seem so urgent because they are crying for our attention right now. But, really, they don’t matter. It’s all a big lie. The things that really matter are the people in our lives and the moments we have with them. We need to make more urgent the things that have true priority and not get so easily drawn into urgent things that have no true significance.
It is so easy to waste the moments and put off things that are truly important trying to fulfill such meaningless pursuits in life. We think, if we just get through this situation or achieve this next success, we will finally be fulfilled and able to focus on things of true importance. However, it is all a lie. We need to make the time to focus on true priorities and not put them aside. Below are a few stories of people I imagine in the 35W bridge collapse, as I think of how easy it is to get our lives out of wack and miss the opportunity to make things that are truly important first in our lives (these are fictional stories).
Martha was 38 when she died, crossing the 35W bridge on her way home from work. She had stayed at work late to finish an assignment the boss told her was really important for a meeting in the morning. She hated to disappoint and let her boss down, so she stayed. She thought, just this project, then I will start getting my schedule back in balance. Completing it would make her look good and her boss would be very happy with her. She liked being viewed as someone that could be relied upon that always came through in a pinch. However, Martha’s schedule had been off balance for a several months now. She was home late most every night. Distracted and tired when she got home, she would often fall to sleep watching TV. Feeling distant from her husband, forgetting their anniversary because of the stress at work, and thinking that somewhere just around the corner things would lighten up at work and she would have time to make it all up to him.
Tia had had not spoken to her father in over 10 years now. She hung up her cell phone from her mother, furious with her mother for bringing it up and asking that the three of them might have lunch together sometime. Why should she after all these years? After all, her father could have made an effort to get together or call as well as she could. Now she would just rather not dwell on their distance or the hurtful words they spoke to each other so many years ago. She spoke a few swear words under her breath as she drove onto the 35W bridge as it collapsed.
Sam was on the fast track to success. He seemed to have the golden touch with everything he put his hands to. He liked the way it felt. He was highly respected and appreciated at work. He put in long hours and devoted himself to his success. His wife understood. She was always understanding. She liked the life of luxury her husband’s success provided her but greatly missed being able to share her life with him and worried about how his absence was affecting their children. She often daydreamed about the day he made that next promotion he wanted so badly and they could finally get their lives and family in order. She had a long vacation all planned for them when it happened. She couldn’t wait. After all, she was sure it was right around the next corner. Sam gave his wife a quick call on his way to a business dinner to let her know not to wait up for him as he passed onto the 35W bridge.
We have eternity to look forward to.
The truth is that life is fleeting and short. However, for those who know Christ, it is only the beginning. Those who make a decision to accept Him as their Savior, have eternity with Him to look forward to. That is an incredible and profound truth. However, it is also a very sad and tragic truth that not everyone will choose Christ. Sometimes, life ends and someone dies unsaved. God desires that all are saved, but not all make that choice (2 Peter 3:9). People have children, spouses, grandparents, neighbors, and dear friends who they share their lives with who are not going to heaven with them. It is so easy to get busy with our own pursuits in life and bury our head in the sand while we forget this truth.
When we look at life with death in perspective, we see the importance of the decision to accept Christ. It becomes so much more important to take the time to make sure that those we know and have influence with, have the opportunity to receive the gospel and receive Christ if they so desire. It is so easy to leave it up to someone else to be a witness in someone else’s life or to not take the time for what is truly important. It is often scary to share Christ with someone when you don’t know how they will respond. There are so many excuses we can think of for not doing it. The truth is, it does really matter. While we are not responsible for people's response to the gospel when it is presented, God gives us opportunity to share His kingdom light with the unsaved. Below are a few more fictional stories I imagine about people’s lives as they crossed the 35W bridge as it collapsed.
Mary was 14 and was riding along with her mother to the shopping mall. She was going to the Mall of America for some new clothes. On the way, she was talking to her mom about the boy she had met last week. She met him in a Christian group for teens that she joined with her best girlfriend. Her girlfriend was raised Christian and had talked to her about Christ just a month prior. She accepted Christ in her life and began going to her girlfriend’s church group with her. She was so excited for her new faith and hoping for an opportunity to share Christ with her parents who were not saved. She was afraid and not sure how to bring up Christ, knowing her parents believed that all Christians are hypocrites and just followed along with the crowd. She thought to herself, there is plenty of time to think about how to approach her parents on the topic. However, shortly before they crossed the 35W bridge and it collapsed beneith them, she got up the courage to share her faith and her mother accepted Christ.
Sarah thought it was her duty to share Christ with everyone she met. She took it on as her personal responsibility. The moment someone made eye contact with her, she would ask them, “Do you know Christ?” She was so insistent that she became the office annoyance that everyone avoided. Doug had just started at the office two weeks ago. Doug was outspoken about the fact he was a Buddhist. In fact, he wore a chain around his neck that had a Buddha emblem on it. He would tell Sandy about how he thought it gave him strength and peace. Sandy was his trainer who was soft spoken and quiet. She was a Christian but didn’t let many people in on this secret. She had plenty of opportunities to share her faith in Christ with Doug but thought to herself, “Sarah will witness to him.” After all, she didn’t want to be viewed as an annoyance like Sarah so she decided to remain silent about the matter. Doug said goodnight to Sandy as he left the office for the day and jumped onto highway 35W to go to a friend’s house for a few beers. Doug died in the bridge collapse never accepting Christ.
God is good and desires none to perish without coming to know Him. Ultimately the responsibility to accept Christ is between Christ and the unsaved person. While God chooses to use his people as the vessel to present the gospel to the unsaved, God does not lay on any of us individually the full responsibility for someone else's salvation. God is sovereign, including setting the boundary of when our lives end and who he will bring along our path. As Mordecai told Esther in Esther 4:4, if she chose to remain silent, God would raise up someone else, but she would miss her opportunity that God specifically called her to. When we choose silence out of fear of rejection, not being willing to lay down our lives for the sake of our neighbors, we are not walking in or demonstrating His love for others.
We have the 2nd Coming to look forward to.
Getting the word, “Seek Me while there is still time,” also makes me think of the 2nd coming. No one knows for certain when it will come. As Matthew 24:36 says, "No one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.”
While we cannot control how much time we have on earth but we can control what we do with our lives while we are on earth. Matthew 25:13 says, "So stay awake and be prepared, because you do not know the day or hour of my return.” We can chose to live our lives walking with God, ordering our lives in a way that is pleasing to Him, or we can chose to live our lives for ourselves ordered around our own priorities.
Keith Meyers, the Executive Pastor at Open Door, spoke about the coming day of the Lord in his sermon last night. As he noted in his sermon, we are to watch and be ready for the new heavens and the new earth (Matthew 24:42,44). As Matthew 24:46 says, “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes” (ready and standing watch).
Keith mentioned that we need to repent and turn from the sin in our lives, “in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). God is looking for a holy and godly people to come back to (2 Peter 3:11).
The good news is that as Keith mentioned, God is the one bringing it about. It is not by works of self effort, trying to act holy and franticly trying to be good. We are not at the mercy of anyone but God. We need only let him have His way. Where He resides and moves, the hidden work of restoration is taking place. God is bringing His fire and it is a fire of the passion of His love.
Keith noted that we get prepared by learning to live in God’s love now. Invite God into the ruined places of our lives. Put ourselves aside and put others first. Learn to be merciful and loving towards people. Dream how we could be, loving others. As Keith mentioned, it only took 12 guys to turn the world upside down. When we live in the light of Christ’s love, we can make a difference in other’s lives.
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable about ten virgins (My own interjection here). Five of the virgins prepared for the coming of the bridegroom in advance and the other five did not. The five that were not ready tried to get ready when he came, however they were too late. They were shut out, and when they tried to enter, He spoke to them, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.”
The five unprepared virgins never knew Christ but tried to get into His kingdom by their own self effort. Rather than giving their lives to Christ, repenting from sin, and surrendering to His work of restoration, they chose to put it off and do their own thing until it was too late.
Paul is someone who understood this well. In Philippians 3:9-14 he writes,
Every workday I make my way across a bridge that crosses over highway 35W near where the bridge collapse. I see pieces of concrete jetting up that used to be part of the bridge. It is a sad sight as I pass and think about the people who suddenly lost their lives just innocently making their way across. They thought they had their whole lives ahead of them when suddenly it ends. The earth breaks beneath their feet and swallows them up. No more chances, no more opportunities, no last moments with the family. Who knows the worries on their minds, the thoughts of family and friends or plans they were making just before their lives ended.
Stolen. They are stolen from their family and friends, stolen from their dreams and plans, stolen from precious moments and memories. No longer do the worries of the world bother them. No longer do they need to worry about the report the boss wants on their desk the next morning. No more fights with the spouse. It is a reminder that life is precious, way to short and ends suddenly and unexpectedly.
As Max Lucado so eloquently writes in his book Facing Your Giants, “Death robs you.” It “amputates a limb of your life.” It causes incredible pain as you face the frailty and sanctity of life. No more time or opportunities to cherish the moments together… time has run out.
In Leap Over a Wall, Eugene Peterson talks about death. He writes that learning how to live “involves a good deal of meditation and consideration of death.” He goes on to say that we diminish our lives if we avoid the subject and don’t give it our full attention. “Denial of death is avoidance of life.”
Many struggle with, deny, and dehumanize death. The truth is that it is scary for most people. As Eugene Peterson writes, in the death of David, Abishag was a “witness to the sanctity of death, a sacred presence to David in his dying – and as such a quiet rebuke to the others in the story who respond to David’s death as either a problem to be solved, an opportunity to be seized, or a difficulty to be negotiated.” She was just with David as he spent the last days of his life. She nursed him and kept him warm, enjoying his company as she watched him slowly fade away.
As Eugene writes, having people in our lives is inconvenient. It interferes with our time and our propensity for want to live more as gods and goddesses than merely humans. As he writes, “These limitations aren’t minor inconveniences: they’re major and unavoidable conditions in the all-demanding exercise of being human.” He goes on to say that “ridding ourselves of inconvenient lives that seem to interfere with our living results not in more life for us but less.” As he notes, it is giving dignity to death and honoring the limits that deepen our lives.
So what can I learn from this?
Life is precious.
Family and friends, while sometimes frustrating, inconvenient, and time consuming, are what living life is all about. So much time we waste on things that are unimportant and miss great opportunities to love those in our lives. We start thinking that we will always have more opportunities to spend time with the ones we love so we don’t take full advantage of the time in the moment. We become busy and distracted too easy. We pursue our own ambitions and significance. We often ignore death and bury our heads in the sand. We think what is really important is getting things done… they seem so urgent because they are crying for our attention right now. But, really, they don’t matter. It’s all a big lie. The things that really matter are the people in our lives and the moments we have with them. We need to make more urgent the things that have true priority and not get so easily drawn into urgent things that have no true significance.
It is so easy to waste the moments and put off things that are truly important trying to fulfill such meaningless pursuits in life. We think, if we just get through this situation or achieve this next success, we will finally be fulfilled and able to focus on things of true importance. However, it is all a lie. We need to make the time to focus on true priorities and not put them aside. Below are a few stories of people I imagine in the 35W bridge collapse, as I think of how easy it is to get our lives out of wack and miss the opportunity to make things that are truly important first in our lives (these are fictional stories).
Martha was 38 when she died, crossing the 35W bridge on her way home from work. She had stayed at work late to finish an assignment the boss told her was really important for a meeting in the morning. She hated to disappoint and let her boss down, so she stayed. She thought, just this project, then I will start getting my schedule back in balance. Completing it would make her look good and her boss would be very happy with her. She liked being viewed as someone that could be relied upon that always came through in a pinch. However, Martha’s schedule had been off balance for a several months now. She was home late most every night. Distracted and tired when she got home, she would often fall to sleep watching TV. Feeling distant from her husband, forgetting their anniversary because of the stress at work, and thinking that somewhere just around the corner things would lighten up at work and she would have time to make it all up to him.
Tia had had not spoken to her father in over 10 years now. She hung up her cell phone from her mother, furious with her mother for bringing it up and asking that the three of them might have lunch together sometime. Why should she after all these years? After all, her father could have made an effort to get together or call as well as she could. Now she would just rather not dwell on their distance or the hurtful words they spoke to each other so many years ago. She spoke a few swear words under her breath as she drove onto the 35W bridge as it collapsed.
Sam was on the fast track to success. He seemed to have the golden touch with everything he put his hands to. He liked the way it felt. He was highly respected and appreciated at work. He put in long hours and devoted himself to his success. His wife understood. She was always understanding. She liked the life of luxury her husband’s success provided her but greatly missed being able to share her life with him and worried about how his absence was affecting their children. She often daydreamed about the day he made that next promotion he wanted so badly and they could finally get their lives and family in order. She had a long vacation all planned for them when it happened. She couldn’t wait. After all, she was sure it was right around the next corner. Sam gave his wife a quick call on his way to a business dinner to let her know not to wait up for him as he passed onto the 35W bridge.
We have eternity to look forward to.
The truth is that life is fleeting and short. However, for those who know Christ, it is only the beginning. Those who make a decision to accept Him as their Savior, have eternity with Him to look forward to. That is an incredible and profound truth. However, it is also a very sad and tragic truth that not everyone will choose Christ. Sometimes, life ends and someone dies unsaved. God desires that all are saved, but not all make that choice (2 Peter 3:9). People have children, spouses, grandparents, neighbors, and dear friends who they share their lives with who are not going to heaven with them. It is so easy to get busy with our own pursuits in life and bury our head in the sand while we forget this truth.
When we look at life with death in perspective, we see the importance of the decision to accept Christ. It becomes so much more important to take the time to make sure that those we know and have influence with, have the opportunity to receive the gospel and receive Christ if they so desire. It is so easy to leave it up to someone else to be a witness in someone else’s life or to not take the time for what is truly important. It is often scary to share Christ with someone when you don’t know how they will respond. There are so many excuses we can think of for not doing it. The truth is, it does really matter. While we are not responsible for people's response to the gospel when it is presented, God gives us opportunity to share His kingdom light with the unsaved. Below are a few more fictional stories I imagine about people’s lives as they crossed the 35W bridge as it collapsed.
Mary was 14 and was riding along with her mother to the shopping mall. She was going to the Mall of America for some new clothes. On the way, she was talking to her mom about the boy she had met last week. She met him in a Christian group for teens that she joined with her best girlfriend. Her girlfriend was raised Christian and had talked to her about Christ just a month prior. She accepted Christ in her life and began going to her girlfriend’s church group with her. She was so excited for her new faith and hoping for an opportunity to share Christ with her parents who were not saved. She was afraid and not sure how to bring up Christ, knowing her parents believed that all Christians are hypocrites and just followed along with the crowd. She thought to herself, there is plenty of time to think about how to approach her parents on the topic. However, shortly before they crossed the 35W bridge and it collapsed beneith them, she got up the courage to share her faith and her mother accepted Christ.
Sarah thought it was her duty to share Christ with everyone she met. She took it on as her personal responsibility. The moment someone made eye contact with her, she would ask them, “Do you know Christ?” She was so insistent that she became the office annoyance that everyone avoided. Doug had just started at the office two weeks ago. Doug was outspoken about the fact he was a Buddhist. In fact, he wore a chain around his neck that had a Buddha emblem on it. He would tell Sandy about how he thought it gave him strength and peace. Sandy was his trainer who was soft spoken and quiet. She was a Christian but didn’t let many people in on this secret. She had plenty of opportunities to share her faith in Christ with Doug but thought to herself, “Sarah will witness to him.” After all, she didn’t want to be viewed as an annoyance like Sarah so she decided to remain silent about the matter. Doug said goodnight to Sandy as he left the office for the day and jumped onto highway 35W to go to a friend’s house for a few beers. Doug died in the bridge collapse never accepting Christ.
God is good and desires none to perish without coming to know Him. Ultimately the responsibility to accept Christ is between Christ and the unsaved person. While God chooses to use his people as the vessel to present the gospel to the unsaved, God does not lay on any of us individually the full responsibility for someone else's salvation. God is sovereign, including setting the boundary of when our lives end and who he will bring along our path. As Mordecai told Esther in Esther 4:4, if she chose to remain silent, God would raise up someone else, but she would miss her opportunity that God specifically called her to. When we choose silence out of fear of rejection, not being willing to lay down our lives for the sake of our neighbors, we are not walking in or demonstrating His love for others.
We have the 2nd Coming to look forward to.
Getting the word, “Seek Me while there is still time,” also makes me think of the 2nd coming. No one knows for certain when it will come. As Matthew 24:36 says, "No one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.”
While we cannot control how much time we have on earth but we can control what we do with our lives while we are on earth. Matthew 25:13 says, "So stay awake and be prepared, because you do not know the day or hour of my return.” We can chose to live our lives walking with God, ordering our lives in a way that is pleasing to Him, or we can chose to live our lives for ourselves ordered around our own priorities.
Keith Meyers, the Executive Pastor at Open Door, spoke about the coming day of the Lord in his sermon last night. As he noted in his sermon, we are to watch and be ready for the new heavens and the new earth (Matthew 24:42,44). As Matthew 24:46 says, “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes” (ready and standing watch).
Keith mentioned that we need to repent and turn from the sin in our lives, “in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). God is looking for a holy and godly people to come back to (2 Peter 3:11).
The good news is that as Keith mentioned, God is the one bringing it about. It is not by works of self effort, trying to act holy and franticly trying to be good. We are not at the mercy of anyone but God. We need only let him have His way. Where He resides and moves, the hidden work of restoration is taking place. God is bringing His fire and it is a fire of the passion of His love.
Keith noted that we get prepared by learning to live in God’s love now. Invite God into the ruined places of our lives. Put ourselves aside and put others first. Learn to be merciful and loving towards people. Dream how we could be, loving others. As Keith mentioned, it only took 12 guys to turn the world upside down. When we live in the light of Christ’s love, we can make a difference in other’s lives.
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable about ten virgins (My own interjection here). Five of the virgins prepared for the coming of the bridegroom in advance and the other five did not. The five that were not ready tried to get ready when he came, however they were too late. They were shut out, and when they tried to enter, He spoke to them, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.”
The five unprepared virgins never knew Christ but tried to get into His kingdom by their own self effort. Rather than giving their lives to Christ, repenting from sin, and surrendering to His work of restoration, they chose to put it off and do their own thing until it was too late.
Philippians 3:18 says,
“For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”
While the work of preparation and restoration is God’s work, we do have a responsibility for our own spiritual condition. As Life Application Study Bible notes on Matthew 25, “Spiritual preparation cannot be bought or borrowed at the last minute. Our relationship with God must be our own.”
Paul is someone who understood this well. In Philippians 3:9-14 he writes,
“That I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. …Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies head, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
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