Flowers Fade Friday: A Vapor

I’ve been thinking a lot about eternity lately and how fleeting this life really is…

Or at least, I’ve been trying to grasp it.

Because I know I don’t live in the day to day like my life is vapor. I don’t live like my present trials are the blink of an eye before the eternity of heaven.

But what if I did?

What if I counted each trial as a blessing that sculpts me to become more like my Maker, whom I will see face to face one day?

What if I considered each daily task, whether difficult or mundane, as a small note of worship of music, the prelude to the concert that will take place in the Kingdom come?

What if I learned to overlook the wrongs done against me, trusting fully that they will either be forgiven and redeemed by Christ or repaid with the due justice of God’s wrath when this life and this earth are through?

What if I lived without fear, trusting fully that my Savior stands on my behalf at the right hand of God in heaven, and that one day I will look and see him there?

What if I lived each day like the Spirit of the Living God, the one that raised Christ from the dead, dwells in me and gives me power? Because He does…

And what if I stopped dwelling on life’s difficulties and disappointments and counted them all rubbish for the sake of Christ? What if I praised God for anything that makes me more like Him or gives me an opportunity to tell of His faithfulness to others?

And what if I delighted in today while making plans for tomorrow with open hands, knowing only if God wills it will I do this or that in the future?

And what if I gave up regrets knowing a past redeemed brings God glory and what if I trusted that tomorrow is in His hands too? What if stopped caring about age and time and instead thanked God for the opportunity to serve Him in my youth and trust Him to use me and bless me when my hair turns gray?

And what if I gave up the trivial wants and needs and desires that crowd my mind and heart and rest in the fact that my soul is satisfied in Christ and I will have Him forever?

On this earth, I am nothing more than a mist. My life is like a flower that sprouts and blooms and then fades away. And, yet, I am wonderfully made and I have been chosen to live as a child of God forever. Lord, teach me to live in this joyful paradox of fleeting and permanent, of temporary and eternal.