It’s time to grow up…

How many more mornings do we have before the curtain drops and another ascends,
before life as we know it is no more, and things that are not are called into being?
How many sunny days are left before threatening clouds materialize on the horizon,
their advance as much a certainty as the Book lying here beside me foretells?
How many more nights before we have breathed our last on this good green earth
that has sheltered, nurtured, and given us much more than we ever dreamed?
How many mornings are left to praise Him for the beauty of the dawn?
How many days remain to love others as He loves us?
How many nights will there be before there are no more?

It’s time to grow up, I hear Him say,
to lay aside the video-game mentality and just grow up!
I wonder what the result would be if every Christ-follower
would work as diligently winning others to Christ,
as they do in playing meaningless games that do not add
but, instead, drain meaning from their lives.
I know what would happen.
They would bear the incorruptible fruit that no fire could touch.
Yes, it’s time to grow beyond the desensitizing appetites of this life
and mean it when we pray, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done!”

You have today…

Image

The blue white of winter’s early morning extends its comfort
like a monochrome blanket, protecting me from threatening elements
that have the power to maim and kill.
I am at once both life and death, alive to the potential before me,
dead to the spent behind me. Does it matter what transpired yesterday?
In God’s scheme of things, does it really?
Forget not the former days, its lessons learned in reality’s grip.
But do not hold on, let it go to Me,
I hear You say.
You have today, a day of promise, unknown to you but known to Me.
Take from My hand all that you will.
Take from its bounty before you, until
the dawn of tomorrow breaks forth from My hand,
revealing the strength that allows you to stand.
Take from this day promise fulfilled.
Open your heart and let it be filled
with all that I am and forever will be,
Lord of your day for eternity.

Father, fill me this day with Your love unabated, that it cannot help
but spill over and onto the lives of those I touch.
Use me as a fountain to refresh the weary with life-giving water
that cannot be contained in the cistern of Your love.

02-17-2015