My church is semi-famous for making movies. We're "that church" - the church that makes movies on a shoe-string budget that are professional enough to be distributed nationally and world-wide. And my claim to fame, if it can be called that, is that I was in one of those movies. Now, before you get all excited, please let me clarify that statement. I was in the movie - sort of. I was an extra - my screen time equaled the amount of time it took to walk past an open door. I would say that it was roughly two-fifths of a second. Maybe less.
Anyway, the point is, that I can by no means say that this movie was about me. I had an incredibly brief role, hardly even noticeable. Just imagine what people would say, if I had rented out an entire movie theater on opening day and then invited all of my friends to come see "my movie." They would have laughed their heads off at me! Anyone in their right minds would know that I cannot plausibly claim even remote ownership of this movie.
So why is it, then, that every single one of us has a tendency to do just that? Consider the movie of life. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then, when His creation rebelled against Him, it was God who flooded the earth. Throughout the history recorded in the Bible, God uses people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Mary, Joseph, and the prophets to fulfill His perfect plan. Then, when humanity had thoroughly screwed everything up again, it was God's Son who came to save us one and for all. And, at the end of the story, it will be God whom we will all be standing in front of, waiting for His judgement.
Do you see a pattern here? So often we want to claim our lives as our own, insisting that we are the main actors. But we are not. This is God's story that we are living in. He is the main character. We are not even supporting characters. We are brief extras, whose total screen time is similar to mine, roughly two-fifths of a second. Does that throw life into a different light for you? It surely does for me. So often I waste the day, reassuring myself that I have plenty of time, that I can finish it tomorrow, that it doesn't matter if I waste time today. But if I knew that I really had less than a second left, you can bet your life that I wouldn't be wasting mine!
In our heads, we all know that we are mortal. We all know that we will eventually die. But we don't really believe it. We are not living in a way that shows that we believe it. If we truly grasped the frailty of ours lives, we would live with such a fervor, such a passion, that people would stand back and stare and us in wonder, that they would constantly be asking us what our secret is. Frederick Buechner writes that "Intellectually, we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever."
Don't waste your 2/5 of a second. Be a history maker; be a catalyst for change; take hold of your life. Give God your everything, no matter how brief your time may be. When your screen time ends, don't find yourself standing before the Almighty God having to explain to Him why you did not glorify Him with the time that He had given you.
Anyway, the point is, that I can by no means say that this movie was about me. I had an incredibly brief role, hardly even noticeable. Just imagine what people would say, if I had rented out an entire movie theater on opening day and then invited all of my friends to come see "my movie." They would have laughed their heads off at me! Anyone in their right minds would know that I cannot plausibly claim even remote ownership of this movie.
So why is it, then, that every single one of us has a tendency to do just that? Consider the movie of life. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then, when His creation rebelled against Him, it was God who flooded the earth. Throughout the history recorded in the Bible, God uses people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Mary, Joseph, and the prophets to fulfill His perfect plan. Then, when humanity had thoroughly screwed everything up again, it was God's Son who came to save us one and for all. And, at the end of the story, it will be God whom we will all be standing in front of, waiting for His judgement.
Do you see a pattern here? So often we want to claim our lives as our own, insisting that we are the main actors. But we are not. This is God's story that we are living in. He is the main character. We are not even supporting characters. We are brief extras, whose total screen time is similar to mine, roughly two-fifths of a second. Does that throw life into a different light for you? It surely does for me. So often I waste the day, reassuring myself that I have plenty of time, that I can finish it tomorrow, that it doesn't matter if I waste time today. But if I knew that I really had less than a second left, you can bet your life that I wouldn't be wasting mine!
In our heads, we all know that we are mortal. We all know that we will eventually die. But we don't really believe it. We are not living in a way that shows that we believe it. If we truly grasped the frailty of ours lives, we would live with such a fervor, such a passion, that people would stand back and stare and us in wonder, that they would constantly be asking us what our secret is. Frederick Buechner writes that "Intellectually, we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever."
Don't waste your 2/5 of a second. Be a history maker; be a catalyst for change; take hold of your life. Give God your everything, no matter how brief your time may be. When your screen time ends, don't find yourself standing before the Almighty God having to explain to Him why you did not glorify Him with the time that He had given you.
James 4:13-17
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
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