So thank You Lord for another year to love You and serve You and glorify You. Another opportunity to make much of You and to make Your Name known. And another opportunity to love those You have placed in our lives and in our paths. The older I get, the more I realize that unless I am loving You and loving others, then I might as well be that clanging, useless gong referred to by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. I can talk about it all day long. I can write about it. I can do and do and do, but if I'm not truly loving God and the people in my path, I'm just taking up valuable space and of no use to God or anybody else. O Lord, help me to love! Help my life this year to make an eternal difference not just by the things I do and say (though I pray that would be so as well) but by the way I love.
It's so easy to waste your time and ultimately your life, isn't it? You sit down to catch up on emails and the next thing you know, you've surfed the web and chased down rabbit trails and gone off on tangents and your morning is gone. Or you spend hours organizing your stuff--because you have far too much stuff so that it requires hours to organize it! (I'm the founding member of Clutter's Anonymous) We veg in front of the TV or flip through catalogues or shop for more stuff we don't need, and our time ticks away, never to be reclaimed. Forgive us Lord! I'm always so challenged by Ps.90:12 "Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Teach us Lord! Help us this year to truly use our days and our hours and our minutes in ways that will stand the test of time. Help us to use our time to love You and to love people rather than to love ourselves and love things.
I was so challenged the other day when I heard a story told by David Roper in a sermon given 32 years ago. Listen to his words:
"I was walking across the Stanford campus a few weeks back and I saw a birdbath under a bush. The bush covered it so I could hardly see it. It was a very unusual birdbath. I usually don't pay much attention to birdbaths. I'm not a bird and I didn't particularly need a bath. The thing that struck me about this birdbath was that it was very ornate, carved from one piece of marble, a very delicate and lovely work of art. It had a slender fluted column and a little carved basin on the top.
Some of you may have seen it. Obviously its construction had required a lot of work. Someone had invested months in that little project. But this unusual and lovely object had fallen into disuse. The bowl was full of stagnant water. Even the birds had abandoned it and the gardeners had allowed it to become overgrown with bushes. I went away from that encounter thinking about the man who had made it--the hours, the effort, dedication, and energy he had invested in that forgotten, useless birdbath. And as I walked away I asked from my heart, "'Please, Lord, don't let me make birdbaths. Don't let me invest my life where it does not count and spend my time and energy on enterprises that are valueless in your eyes.'"
O Lord Jesus, help me not to be preoccupied with making (or storing or collecting or prizing) "birdbaths." There are so many birdbaths in my life--all the things I seem to love more than My Savior. All the activities that steal my energy and ultimately my joy. All the trifling ways I waste my time. All the things I do that might be "good" but that prevent me from doing the "best." How many times have I needed to get upstairs and read Bible stories and books with my youngest child, but I get mired in emails or cleaning the kitchen or straightening up some mess and I miss that golden opportunity to love my child and spend precious moments with him. Or I get up early in the morning but get sidetracked unloading the dishwasher which leads me to some other chore and suddenly I have no time to spend loving and being loved and taught and guided by the God of the universe. Or I waste time and money on more stuff I don't need rather than spend that time and money on helping and encouraging and loving other people. Birdbaths!
This year may it be different! Might we truly number our days aright to gain a heart of wisdom--a heart that overflows with gratitude and joy and love for God and for people. Might we use our days in serving and loving Him and them. Might we live each day to make it our masterpiece for the glory of God. We might have failed in the past--but we serve a God who makes all things new! I've always heard "God works best in a graveyard." He delights to take that which seems hopeless and dead and beyond repair and give it new life, new hope, new purpose. Hand Him your birdbaths. And ask Him to enable you to live each day in 2012 no longer making birdbaths but making Him and His Name great and glorious as You love Him and then love others. To God be the glory.
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