In my traveling, I am doing more reading than writing (other than sermons !)
I read this this morning, enjoy!
The Days of Our Years
A few days after these words appear in print the old year of our Lord will have gone to join the long procession of years and centuries that move on into the shadows of a past that can come no more.
In the year just gone the world has been writing history, not with ink only but with blood and tears; not in the quiet of the study but in violence, terror and death in city streets and along the borders of nations; and other and milder but more significant history has been written by incredible feats of power in sending man-made objects out to circle the moon and the sun.
But what is more important is that each of us has also been writing history. That the church has made history is not so significant as that you have and I have. What is done by a group is possible only because individuals have been at work. A company cannot work as a company nor will it be judged as such. Paul by inspiration singled out the individual and stood him up alone to receive judgment:
Every man’s work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire: and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. (1 Corinthians 3:13–15)
And again,
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10)
At that day there will be no hiding in the crowd. Each one will come carrying his own book of history under his arm. So we should close reverently the book of the year just gone; we shall see it again.
To each one fortunate enough to live out 1959, God will have given 365 days broken into 8,760 hours. Of these hours, 2,920 will have been spent in sleep, and about the same number at work. An equal number has been given us to spend in reverent preparation for the moment when days and years shall cease and time shall be no more. What prayer could be more spiritually appropriate than that of Moses, the man of God: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom†(Psalm 90:12).
Tozer, A. W., & Verploegh, H. (1993). The warfare of the spirit (pp. 133–135). Camp Hill, PA.: WingSpread.
