So yesterday was a first for me.
It was the first time a birthday number seemed … old.
It’s not like I’m fifty or more (hubby reference, snicker). It’s just that (gulp) fourth-eight sounds like the age of someone older that I feel.
But it’s more than just the numerical change, it’s also the sense that I’m not where I expected to be at this stage of life. In all areas from work, to family, to finances, to physical fitness, to spiritual growth I could easily look at my present realities and feel like I’m simply falling short, even failing in areas of life and living.
Then something about grass withering and flowers falling came to my mind.
I sought out the source of those words, and found them to be from 1 Peter 1. As I read verses 24-25a:
“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever”
But then I read the entire chapter (well worth the read), and was especially drawn to the section from verses 17-25:
“Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,
“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you.”
1 Peter 1:17-25
So, who are we? And what does it have to do with what we expect of our lives?
We will wither, die. Our lives, though short, have the ability to have lasting impact, through spreading the seed of the living and enduring word of God, by loving each other, deeply, from the heart.
To do this is to really live, whether we are in our youth or at any time in our lives.
itsawonderfilledlife 