Time and Swift Transition
Here in the state I live in the wind is a challenge and it’s a presence…
*“Always, always, drink the good champagne and use the things you keep for ‘best’. Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. Today is a gift that’s why we call it the present. Eat, Drink & Be Merry.” Taken from: Donna Ashworth From To The Women: words to live by
Well, I don’t drink champagne, so there’s that. But the idea is that we often save things we think are special to be used at special times then when all is said and done we don’t use it at all. The special things get broken, or they aren’t special to the one that inherits them, they get sold or worse they are thrown out…
The idea of “eat, drink, and be merry” is found in the scriptures. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says: “If after the manner of men I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” (1 Corinthians 15:32)
Some people were saying that the dead were not raised again and the Apostle Paul’s response was, “What? If we have hope in this life only, our reaction should be let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” And if this earthly life is all there is he would be right. However what evidence do we have that there is more than this life?
“—and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from these vain things unto a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is: who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways. And yet He left not himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:15-17)
We have proof of a higher being, a God, who left his evidence around us everywhere, and even left us his written word. Indeed, even a child can see the beauties of this earth and realize in order for these things to exist there must be a creator. A systematic, orderly, creation demands that there be a creator, a higher power as it were. God has revealed his higher power through the natural world, its beauty, and its order. God has also used his written word as contained in the Bible. Anyone who denies there is a God must play a convoluted game to arrive at that verdict.
*“We are not here for long but if you are living against the wind it can feel like a life-sentence. Life should not feel like a chore, it should feel like an adventure.” (Also from Donna Ashworth From To The Women: words to live by)
—Living against the wind… Here in the state I live in the wind is a challenge and it’s a presence. I’ve used a clothesline to dry our laundry most of my life. After a few years of living in a different state and then returning, I was hanging clothes on the line. Or at least I was pinning them on the line, but as fast as I would pin them up, the wind was blowing them off. Living against the wind can get real out here.
During the 1930s times were desperate for many people exacerbated by what is known as the Dust Bowl. AP reporter, Robert Geiger coined the phrase Dust Bowl as a huge wall of black dust enveloped the world. It blocked out the sun, at times from Texas to the East Coast killing people and animals. That would have been an adventure I wouldn’t want to have. That would have been living against the wind in real-time.
Just as those people, some who paid for their mistakes with their lives, we must be careful we don’t forge our own chains. No one has found a better basis for living a good life than following the Bible’s instructions. The idea is to weigh our decisions and measure them against the Bible, instead of making them with little to no thought. We should live each day we are given and be thankful, to be grateful.
Time moves at its own pace, steadily day by day. Our lives are like a vapor on the face of this earth. We are told in James, “…whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14)
History books and historians record the large-scale events that shape what is remembered on the pages of history books. But seldom do we ever view the small everyday happenings that are important to everyday people. The small things are just as important as the large ones. As the saying goes, “To the world, you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.” Bill Wilson
A true story came across my feed about a wealthy young man of 29, in the prime of his life. He was preparing to go on a skiing vacation when he received a call from a friend who was living in Prague. The young man, Winton, was urged to join his friend for what was a momentous event.
When Winton arrived in Prague he found refugee camps—the year was December 1938—Prague was full of people who had fled from Sunderland, and not just refugees, but hundreds of children, whose needs were not addressed. This became Nicholas Winton’s purpose, to take care of as many Jewish children as he could with the time clock ticking. He was able by the grace of God to get six hundred sixty-nine children safely into England before the border shut down.
Mr. Winton went on with his life, never telling his children or grandchildren, he didn’t even tell his wife about this segment of his life. It wasn’t until 1988, when his wife discovered his journal with names, addresses, and pictures of the children and their adoptive families that his activities in these events came to light.
As can be imagined, as his story became public many things came about in his last years . He received awards and recognition from not just “Winton’s children” as the children he had rescued became known but from heads of countries across the world. He was even knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, before his death in 2015 at one hundred and six years old.
*“Who will remember you and for what, become important factors as you age. Your love and your wisdom will live on far longer than any material thing you can pass down. Tell your stories, they can travel farther than you can imagine.” (Donna Ashworth From To The Women: words to live by)
“Come now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil. To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (James 4:13-17)
