Proverbs 15:24 The path of life leads upward for the prudent to keep them from going down to the realm of the dead.
While crawling along the four-lane two-way street, I leaned back in my seat with one hand on the steering wheel as the traffic crept along. The congestion on both sides of the medium was snarled. I was late for an appointment and there were no detours in sight. Next to me in the left lane, there was a funeral cortège. I could see the coffin through the tinted long side window of the black polished hearse as it moved at the same pace I was creeping along. I looked over and said, “Ya, for you, this traffic no longer matters, but for me and everyone in this gridlock, life goes on.”
The fact is – like the person being carried away in the hearse, the day that I leave this earth, life will go on without me. A few people in my family and some friends will feel my absence for a while, but eventually, life will go on. James 4:14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. We all have an appointed time to fulfill what God has sown in our souls. After we leave this earthbound existence, God’s worldwide eternal project continues without us. Hopefully, we were able to do what the Lord had instructed our hearts to do while we lived on His green earth.
Life moves on, with or without us, but while we are here, we use the wisdom God gives us to sow His love into this world while looking upward and forward toward our eternity. Prov. 15:24 The path of life leads upward for the prudent to keep them from going down to the realm of the dead. Hopefully, we do not live our lives in the realms of the dead but walk in a relationship with God. We have all been created on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose by our Heavenly Father. Our Lord has an eternal plan He sees us fulfilling. It is up to us to move forward by faith and enter the fullness of His plan through Christ.
Can God bring His eternal intentions to fruition without us, and can we be replaced? Absolutely! God is blessing our lives by allowing us to work with Him. How precious is that? Elijah believed he was alone in serving God and thought the Lord might be in trouble without his help. However, God pointed out that there were seven thousand others who were ministering with God in Israel at the time and God’s program was moving forward.1Kings 19:18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.
Fulfilling our life’s purpose the best way we can, gives us life now and an expectation toward our eternity. However, we need to merge with what God is doing and stop heading off in other directions trying to manipulate what God is doing to coincide with our ambitions. We tend to want to control and know everything about our destiny in Christ. We seem to get in the way of what God is doing with our lives, loved ones, and time schedules. We need God’s thoughts to move forward at the same pace God is moving. Isa. 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. Getting out of God’s way, and working within His master plan will bring results.
Some people want to know their future. Not me, no way! I want God to know my future and be in charge of it because I trust Him to fulfil it. King Hezekiah was dying and he asked God for more time to live. 2Kings 20:6a I will add fifteen years to your life. Hezekiah is granted fifteen more years of life. Think about it. Was it real life he got, or some extra time of existence? Yuk, could you imagine knowing the exact amount of time or the approximate date left till you die? In most cases, people would become paralyzed in thought by overanalyzing everything while knowing the upcoming death date was just off in the future. That little worm would eat away at their consciousness with a tick-tock tick-tock awareness that the fifteen years were coming to an end. I think this would make it hard to allow the joys of living in the moment to ever become restful in one’s heart. The sad thing is, during this extra time Hezekiah drew breath, he fathered a son who would become the evilest king in Israel’s history.
Yes, Lord, we all want a long and healthy life and thank God that we can pray for that blessing. But as for me Lord, let my concentration be on living in the spirit of God and not on the eventual date of my death. I’m speaking from the position of one who years ago did die for a moment while having a stroke. I know I am on borrowed time and I am making the best of living day by day and not keeping an eye on my expiration date. No Saints, today is the day the Lord has made and we are to rejoice in it. As life moves on, let us give our lives to the Lord and let Him direct our steps because He has the number of our days in His hands, and is well able to choose the best for us. May we all fulfill what the Lord created us to do and be in Him. Amen!
Amen living for my Heavenly Father