Each week one of our band members shares devotions during our practice. Here’s what one of our band shared at last week’s practice.
My friend and I met fifty years ago and I can’t quite believe that so much time has passed. I remember being told once that time passes more quickly when you get older and laughing at that thought. However, I now understand that we can perceive time as passing more quickly as we get older.
Billy Graham wrote ‘Scripture says that God allows us seventy years and some beyond. The first fifteen are spent in childhood and early adolescence. Twenty years are spent in bed, and in the last five, physical limitations start to curtail our activities. That gives us about thirty years in which to live as adults. We take time out for eating, and for figuring our taxes, and we are down to perhaps fifteen years. Now suppose we spend seven of those years watching television. That cuts us down to seven or eight years. Our time is short! The time we can invest for God, in creative things, in reaching our fellowmen for Christ, is short!’
It is not my intention to depress you, particularly the young among us, but the idea of time passing has been in my mind since I read the following in my daily devotional this week:
‘The greatest moment in your life is now. Not because it’s pleasant or happy or easy, but because it’s the only moment you have. Every past moment is irretrievably gone. If you live there, you lose your life. And the future is always out there somewhere. You can spend an eternity waiting for tomorrow or worrying about tomorrow. If you live there, you likewise will lose your life.
This moment is God’s irreplaceable gift to you. Most of all, this is the moment that matters because this is the moment where God is. If you are going to be with God at all, you must be with him now – in this moment. That is why the psalmist says: ‘This is the day the Lord has made. Let’s rejoice and be glad today’ (Psalm 118:24 GWT). That is why the prophet Jeremiah said God’s mercies never fail because ‘they are new every morning’ (Lamentations 3:23 NKJV). That is why the apostle Paul said, ‘Be careful how you live…Make the most of every opportunity…Understand what the Lord wants you to do’ (Ephesians 5:15-17 NLT). ‘
We are human and if like me you may worry about what you said or did in a particular situation and wish you could go back and change it. Likewise we can worry about the future instead of focussing on today and what is happening around us. Can I challenge you, as I have been challenged, to treasure each day, and as Christians to make the most of every opportunity to tell others of Christ.
This is God’s moment,
God’s moment for you;
A moment so solemn,
Yet joyous and new,
Forgiven is all sinning,
Real life is beginning,
For this is God’s moment for you.