Lately I’ve felt such a defined sense of the beginning and endings of our lives here on earth. Maybe it has to do with my experiences with the deaths of four people close to me – all in the last 2 years. Each person played a profound role in my life; first my late husband in 2010, then, my maternal grandfather in 2011, and now both of my paternal grandparents in 2012. The brevity of our time here on earth has been heavy on my heart and on my mind for it truly is like a vapor “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” James 4:14. We are here today and gone tomorrow so how do we make our short amount of time significant? I’ve been asking, “Lord, What is it really all about? These lives that you bless us with, what are we supposed to do with them?” I believe many would cringe at the words life and blessing even being used in the same sentence to describe their own lives for I think a vast majority feel a kind of mundane existence on a day to day basis. Not even necessarily a peaceful or contented existence, but a grindful reality where joy comes from a weekend of not working or a lazy Sunday afternoon watching football or a trip to the mall spending well earned money on more things that nobody really needs. Where is our joy in this life? What is the purpose of it all? This prayer has been playing over and over in my mind lately, and God has been imprinting it upon my heart, almost as a daily reminder for all of the “Whys” that I ask. Maybe it can be helpful to you as well as you ask yourself, what is this all about? Am I content to live in a sort of dull, lifeless, passionless existence or will I ask God, “What would you have ME do? How can my life bring you glory Lord with whatever time you see fit to grant me breath?”
My Prayer
Lord, use me today. Everything within me I give to you for your use and for your glory. Use my life, every single aspect of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the pains, the deep scars, the beautiful circumstances, my actions, my inactions, my words and thoughts, my obedience, or lack of obedience – May it ALL be used for your glory and to further your kingdom. Use my past, use my present and use my future to further ignite the ultimate cause –grace heaped upon grace reaching to the farthest corners of this planet and within the darkest crevices of the human soul. Use the fight in me always for good and never for evil; and use my strength to serve as a battle shield against the firing darts of the evil one. May I never look at life with purely earthly eyes but always allow me the ability to see beyond the here and now and to grasp the big picture even if I don’t understand it in the moment. Wring my cells, my heart, my mind, my soul, completely empty of everything that can be used, every single drop of talent or ability, it is yours Lord. May I always give you all the glory until I breathe my last and you call me home, and I leave behind only a pile of nothingness in the spiritual realm as your heavenly angels escort me to your presence. And last but not least, may I hear the words that every servant of the most High God yearns to hear one day, “Well done, good and faithful servant, well done”. To Him be the glory and the honor and the power forever and ever, Amen.
Just keep livin!!
chills!