"Don't Let the Past Remind You of What You Are Not Now!"
Crosby, Stills and Nash
Birthdays (mine is tomorrow) provide an opportunity to reminisce on the past, evaluate the present, and wonder about the future. I have been enjoying my senior discounts this past year, and now I am firmly planted in a "discounted life." This may be true in the secular world but it's far from true in the sacred world and the world of the future. I desire my life to count for that which is significant and eternal. That means living my life for things that matter most.
Jesus put it in a way that was both profound and paradoxical. He said to His followers and most specifically to Peter:
"For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it." Matthew 16:25
There is much to consider in this phrase addressed to believers of the first century and those of us in the twenty-first century. This is the clarion call to discipleship; to invest our life for things that matter most by living in this world while focusing on the world to come.
As age intrudes and invades us, we cannot escape its encroachment on our life. As a result, many affirm the cynical slant of Reginald Saki; "The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened."
I prefer to live as the Apostle Paul declared: "Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
