Today

Want to get a post in before things get any more nuts around here. Getting you up to speed:

Last night, on her way home from a great visit with her family in So. Cal., our Office Manager and the new Connection Group Director, Stacy Rude, was in a shuttle bus that tried to win a gold in ice skating. Apparently, the bus spun three times and flipped over four times. She was taken to a hospital, treated and released, but she's banged up pretty good. Praise God she's safe and sound!

And, last night at around midnight, Brenda lost her battle with cancer. I don't have any details at this point, but her friends and family are both mourning her loss and celebrating her arrival in heaven. We are going to celebrate that arrival later this week sometime.

Soooooo...

I'm touched by both of those stories and what I read in my quiet time last night: Psalm 39 talks about knowing the number of our days, and how short our lives really are. If we only knew what time we really have, and how short it is in comparison to eternity, then the trials, the tests, the pain, the problems - they are all just a blip on the radar compared to forever.

And so are the opportunities - the opportunities to learn, to grow, to share hope and love, to be Jesus to other people, to point someone to God's plan, to forgive - they are all fleeting as well.

I prayed last night for God to show me how short my time on this earth really is. I was not expecting Him to answer this fast OR this LOUDLY!! Bad on me. God answers prayer. So I want to ask all of you: how much time do you really have? And way more importantly: what are you going to do with it? Can you endure the tough stuff, knowing life is only a vapor, a mist that is gone in the sunlight? Can you step up and be Jesus to people in the opportunities you have in front of you now, knowing that life is a mere handbredth long, and you don't really know how many chances you will have?

The time is shorter than we know. The day is today. The chance is in front of you. The choice is yours: blessing or cursing, heaven or hell. Please - for Christ's sake - do something with it today.

Psalms 39:4-5 (NIV)
"Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath."