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Life
【Brief Life】Average life spans are shorter than most of us realize. Unlike the great redwood trees that can
last for a thousand or more years, most other things come and go quicker than
we would imagine. After a little
digging, I found several examples that illustrate how temporary things really
are:
Copper Plumbing 20-25 years
Cat
15 years
Face-Lift
6-10 years
Vitamin
3 years
Dollar Bill 18 months
Painted line
on the road 3-4 months
Pro-basketball
player's shoes 2
weeks
Tornado
10 minutes
I purposely
omitted human beings. There are
differences of opinion, but most would agree it's somewhere between 75 and 80
years. That may sound encouraging
to the young and pretty disturbing to those in their eighties. The simple fact is, nobody knows for
sure how long he or she may live.
When we read and believe the warnings in Scripture, there is little
doubt that life is short. James
pulls no punches when he writes, "You are just a vapor that appears for a
little while and then vanishes away" (4:14). Life? A puff of smoke...a cloud of dust...
--Charles Swindoll
【Happiness in
Life】Charlie Brown, pondering his plight in life, thought,
“Yesterday, for one brief moment I was happy. But just when I thought I was
sinning in the game of life, there was a flag thrown on the play and life dealt
me a blow.
【Day-to-Day
Life】Yard by yard, life is hard.
Inch
by inch, it’s a cinch.
【Perspective of
Life】In a “Peanuts” comic strip, there was a conversation
between Lucy and Charlie Brown. Lucy said that life is like a deck chair. Some
place it so they can see where they are going; some place it so they can see
where they have been; and some place it so they can see where they are at
present. Charlie Brown’s reply: “I can’t even get mine unfolded.”
【Life’s Purpose】Someone has aptly
said, “Living without God’s plan for our life is like sewing with a needle
without thread, or writing one’s biography with a pen empty of ink.”
【Life’s Purpose】Some tine ago,
psychologist William Moulton Marston asked three thousand persons, “What have
you to live for?”
He
was shocked to find that 94 percent were simply enduring the present while
waiting for the future. They would describe this as waiting for “something” to
happen-waiting for children to grow up and leave home, waiting for next year,
waiting for another time to take a long-dreamed-about trip, waiting for
tomorrow. They were all waiting without realizing that all anyone ever has is
today because yesterday is gone and tomorrow never comes.
【Life’s Purpose】All have been
given a bag of tools,
A
formless rock and a book of rules.
And
each must make ere life has flown,
A
stumbling block or a stepping stone.
【Life’s Purpose】He who has a
“why” to live for can bear with almost any “how”.—Friedrich Nietzsche, a German
nihilist
【Life’s Purpose】Lord, make me an
instrument of Thy peace;
Where
there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where
there is doubt, faith;
Where
there is despair, hope;
Where
there is darkness, light; and
Where
there is sadness, joy.
O
Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
Seek
to be consoled, as to console;
To
be understood as to understand;
To
be loved, as to love;
For
it is in giving that we receive;
It
is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and
It
is in dying that we are born to eternal life.—Francis of Assisi
【Life’s
Uncertainty】A young couple desiring to go into missionary work
had invited a missionary couple to their home. The host couple kept mentioning
that life was so “uncertain” for them because the husband had multiple
sclerosis. He could either be eventually immobilized in a hospital bed, or live
normally until death, or die unexpectedly.
After
hearing the term uncertain so many times, the missionary turned to the couple
and said, “All of our lives are uncertain. You just happen to know it, and most
of us don’t.”
【Living in Past】Our past,
mistakes as well as worthwhile accomplishments, is like a car’s rear-view
mirror. While driving, we use the broad view through the windshield as we move
ahead, but we also use the mirror for reference, making quick, periodic glances
into it for information to aid in making driving decisions. Although we cannot
effectively or safely move ahead by staring only into the mirror and ignoring
the view from the windshield, “proper” use of the mirror does ensure a safer,
smoother trip to our destination.
In
the same way, we are not to dwell in our past, but live by using the lessons of
the past as a reference to aid our journey into the future.
【Suicide】Some time ago an
article in the paper recorded two deaths. A middle-aged couple died in each
other’s arms-the result of a suicidal overdose of drugs-because they couldn’t
face separation by death.
A
psychiatry professor at a large university and his wife left a suicide note
explaining that the wife was suffering from emphysema and kidney, liver, and
heart ailments. Doctors had told her she might live up to five years or die at
any time. Their oldest son said, “My father and mother were very much in love
with each other. We wondered what my father would do if anything ever happened
to Mom.” Lewis said his parents often discussed suicide. “This solution was not
a bad one,” he added.
This
couple could not face reality, because they had no hope beyond the present.