Everything In Its Time

Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that everything is appropriate in its time.  I began thinking of that verse last month as we celebrated another birthday.  This time the birthday was mine.
     What made this birthday memorable was not just the presence of our family but it also reminded me that just a month before my birthday over three decades ago, my father went to be with the Lord.  Now I look at that moment so differently than I did at the time.  I was young, had a family, was ministering in a local church in Iowa, and the loss of my father was a shock even though he had been ill for a few months and had told me he wanted to die.
     Today I am just eight years short of my father's age when he died.  I can look in the mirror and see him in his graying years.  I can understand the aches and pains of aging and how some things become more difficult to accomplish than they had in past years.  I eat well, try to get good exercise, work in my yard a good share of the year, avoid things that would harm my health and look for opportunities to interact with other people.  However, as Solomon reminds us, there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to laugh and a time to cry.  Life is a mixture of things pleasant and unpleasant to us, but God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He is faithful.  He is loving and gracious.  He never forsakes His own.  AND..."He has set eternity in our hearts." (Eccl. 3:11).  We were made for more than this moment.  We were made for eternity and we only find meaning in this life when our focus is on what is yet to come. 
     Today may our prayer be: "Come, Lord Jesus."