You walked into the party...

Sometimes I think we as humans fail to realize that we’ve all joined a party that started long before we arrived, one that will continue long after we leave. Out attitude and perspectives often reflect an ownership that goes way beyond filling our shoes and taking responsibility  for the lives we have been given.

That’s right, dear ones. Life may be for the taking but until God actually grants us the thing in the first place.  I watch as kids (and sadly countless adults)  brazenly stroll through their short years with a smug sense of self-made-ness  and I wonder what happens when the glass shatters? Who cleans up the mess? 

I know. This is common “religious” thought: we  humble (deprecate) ourselves to such a lowly place that God has to save a wretch like us.  I am in no way subscribing to or recommending that viewpoint. The Bible says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.” I have been lifted and have learned a valuable lesson: NO WRETCH HERE.

In fact, God has shown me so much love and acceptance that I actually have some left over for others.  Fortunately, that love has also come with an awareness of the short time I have been given and the profound  need to spend that time sharing that love with as many as come into my path.

It is the painful awareness of the shortness of life that always brings me around to the harsh reality that I do not own, rule or run the world. I’m a pilgrim here, a wayfarin’ stranger. Entitlement doesn’t serve me one bit. Only service serves me. “Be a servant to all, be a slave to all…”

Personally, I have found that if I’m on vacation, a tourist in an unexplored place, I spend less time napping but am more aggressive in taking in as much local splendor as possible.  I choose to attack this short life in similar fashion.

I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Cross my path and I’ll tell ya God loves you. Trash my world and I’ll remind ya that it was here long before you and you may want to get with The Program. And The Program states, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” It’s HIS ultimately and we’re just visiting.

Let’s try to get along with His people, follow His laws and leave our rooms a little cleaner than when we moved in. Someone else is waiting to join  the party…

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