Maybe someday the entire cliff will collapse and bury the clamoring horde of worthless distractions in my life for good, and I will be rid of their useless frittering. Maybe. But for now, at least I can see some of them for the imposters they were and guard against their return.
We humans like to moan and groan about how tired, and pain-wracked, and busy, and stressed, and beset by problems we are.
Well, guess what. That's life.
The alternative is death, but most of us don't really want to think about that because despite our complaining, we are pretty content down here.
We have a handful of people whom we love. We have a handful of people who love us back. We have comfortable routines and things we are looking forward to, and distractions and entertainments, and it is easy to think that the river will just run on.
But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you get news that burns away the drivel and dross of everyday life and makes you start counting your moments like diamonds because suddenly you see the end and you can no longer live within your comfortable illusion of earthly immortality.
This isn't all bad.
A lingering loss defines the boundaries of all that matters. It strips away what is meaningless and frivolous and worthless, sharpens the vision, and refines the gold. It gives time to settle accounts and say the things that matter to the people you love.
Serious illness is still hard and horrible because as eternal beings we were never meant for death, but it does contain a severe mercy.
But sometimes you don't get a warning.
It just ends.
Lest anyone begin conjecturing about what sort of diagnosis I may have received last week, I will insert a picture.
Here is what happened on Friday.
This is the creek where my boys spend 67% of every day. This is the spot in the creek where the fattest, most tempting frogs live.
This is the EXACT spot where three of my boys were playing mere hours before this 5,000 pound willow tree collapsed onto it.
There is no reason for the mercy which spared them. I possess no special merit which prevents tragedy from striking my family.
I could be planning three funerals this week. By the grace of God I am not doing that, but somewhere on this planet, there is a mother just like me who is. I don't deserve this mercy any more than she "deserves" the horror she is living.
Now, this is not going to be a treatise on why God allows bad things to happen to good people. I wouldn't presume to guess, and anyway the premise of that discussion is fundamentally flawed.
My real amazement is saved for why He lets good things happen to bad people since I have lived in that camp for a remarkably large portion of my life. As have you.
So we had a scare, and I marched the boys out and we all talked about the brevity of life and how we ought to live in light of the gift we were given.
Then, on Sunday we drove by this scene at our small, local airport.
But it was worse than this. There was a woman under a tree with her head thrown back in a scream. There were flashing lights and a black bag by the plane and people standing with shocked faces by the road.
It was a beautiful, sunny day. The pilot had come to the field with the joys and hopes common to all men. He had plans for this morning...and for the next one and the next after that.
And instead he stepped into eternity. As my three boys might have done two days earlier.
As they will do one day.
As all of us will do one day.
The image of the fallen tree and the fallen plane just two days apart was a somber gift. It has made me stop mid-rush and take my children's faces in my hands and study every freckle and marvel at the gentle curve of their cheeks and the way the wind moves their hair.
It has made me pause and listen longer, and smile more readily. It has brought me to prayer on their behalf more fervently. It has filled my heart with gratitude and my mouth with praise.
And it has reminded me that I don't own myself--not my time, not my breath, not a single beat of my heart.
Nor do I own the people I love. They are here, as I am, to work and live and love and (hopefully) follow God for as long as He deems right.
And no scheme of man can give us one second more than that.
I am going to frame the picture of that fallen willow because it speaks to me of both mercy and death, time and eternity. After the old tree collapsed, I went out and stood beside it. It's massive trunk lay across the water like the belly of a dragon, and its gnarled branches--some half buried in the dirt from the force of the impact--roped out along the ground like long, gray fingers. And two words seemed to drift up like mist and settle over my heart.
Live Ready.
Of all the ways to live--strong, boldly, loud, large, smart, peacefully, humbly, confidently, sustainably, in luxury, or on less--it is the most important.
Where will you open your eyes when you leave this place?
You are an exquisite, immortal, beloved creation. You have eternity set in your heart. "God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11
You were made to enjoy God forever. "Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand." Psalm 16:9-11
Even after your sin had separated you from fellowship with a perfect, sinless God, He made a way to restore you to Himself. "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8
Do you know Him?
Trust Him?
Believe Him?
Love Him?
*******************
James 4:13-15
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.”
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.
Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
Psalm 103:8-18
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—
with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.
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