Resolved

Resolved: To never do anything that I would not do if it were the last hour of my life. (Jonathan Edwards).

For the past week I have been thinking about “lasts”, as in “this may be the last time I do this.”  I have been in Alaska, the place I grew up and the single place on this earth that my mind wanders to when I am in a place I do not want to be.  It is a place of stunning beauty, the place above all others that fills my heart and my mind with visions of God’s manifest glory, beauty, and infinite worth.  And it is a place that I may never see again.  The word never has a pessimistic finality associated with it, and I do not mean that at all.  Lord willing I will see Alaska again.  I sure as anything want my kids to see it (when we have them).  And while my hope is to see Alaska again, I was struck with the realization that I am not guaranteed to wake up in the morning, much less make it back to Colorado and back again, Lord willing, to Alaska in the future.  No, life is far too fragile and we as humans are far to finite to assume anything.  Which brought me to the thought that Edwards had: if this were my last hour, would I stand ashamed in front of Jesus Christ and the host of heaven for how I spent my time.  Did my last hour, whether I knew it were my last or not, exude a confidence in who Christ is and what He has done or did I spend my last hour in selfish pursuits?  This question is easily extrapolated to the macro scale of life.  Did my life point to Jesus Christ and make much of him, or did I view life as a playground to be enjoyed with little heed of Christ and what is to come.  We are but like dew on the grass, here in the morning, and gone before lunch, with lives so short that in 80 years we will be forgotten (when was the last time you woke up and thought of your great-great-great grandfather – I can’t even find out what the name of mine was).  What are we doing with our lives, and if this were my last hour, would I try to furtively take my seat at the feast of the lamb as to avoid eye contact with those saints who fought the good fight, who finished the race, and, as A.W. Tozer puts it, have the scars to prove they were present when the battle was joined?