By the time you knew what to call it, you were neck deep in it. You'd  toddler walked and talked, smelled crayons and swung bats, gurgled and giggled your way out of nappies and into childhood. 

You'd noticed how guys aren't girls and dogs aren't cats and pizza sure beats spinach. And then, somewhere in the midst of it all, it hit you. At your grandads funeral perhaps. Maybe when you waved goodbye as your big brother left home for university. You realised that these days are more than ice cream trips, homework and pimples. This is called life. An this one is yours. 

Complete with summers and songs and gray skies and tears, you have a life. Didn't reuest one, but you have one. A first day, a final day. And a few thousand in between. You've been given a honest-to-goodness human life. 

You've been given your life.  No one else has your version. You'll never bump into yourself in the street. you'll never meet anyone who has your exact blend of lineage, loves and longings.  Your life will never be lived by anyone else. You're not a jacket in an attic that can be recycled after you are gone.

And who pressed the accelerator? As soon as one day is lived, voila, here comes another. The past has passed and the good old days are exactly that: old days, the stuff of rearview mirrors and scrapbooks. Life is racing by, and if we are not careful, you and I will look up and our shot at it will have passed us by. 

Some people don't bother with such thoughts. they grind through their days without lifting their eyes to look. They live and die and never ask why. But you are not numbered amongst them. It's not enough for you to do well. You want to do good. you want your life to matter. You want to live in such a way that the world will be glad that you did. 

"we are God's masterpiece. he has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.  " Eph 2:10

We are created to do great works. he invites us to outlive our lives, not just in heaven but here on earth. 

 

(with thanks to Max Lucado) 

 

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