Bringing Eternity Closer to Those Clutching at Straws

by Lizzy

It seems everywhere you turn these days there are reminders that life is but a moment. I have been cutting up a scrapbooking magazine for some pictures and I have found so many little tags and captions designed to capture the moment. ‘Remember the moment’, ‘Live fully, laugh heartily, relax daily, love completely, enjoy the journey’, ‘I am so thankful’, ‘Cherish: to treat with affection and tenderness: Hold Dear’. ‘Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.’ ‘Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.’

Even driving past the corner store, written on their blackboard was the phrase: ‘There are seven days in a week, someday is not one of them.’ And I’m glad, honestly I am that there are so many reminders that we are not here forever, but I really hope it makes people stop and think, what’s next?

After their life here, that hopefully they enjoy, are thankful for, cherish, live fully, where are they going next? Do they have an assurance of the next step if they were to die tomorrow? Do the people around us somehow understand that time as we know it is nearing the midnight hour? Do they understand perhaps sometimes better than we that the end times are near, and they are clutching at every moment, longing to enjoy it but not sure how in the middle of crisis and argument and heartache?

I asked God for an awareness of this reality perhaps a year or two ago, I asked Him to ‘break my heart for what breaks yours’ as the line goes in a popular Hillsong tune, and He did. For a little while there it seemed that I even had a little courage to do something about it. To step out and pray for someone hobbling around the supermarket, to follow the prompting of a night dream and meet someone at the corner pub and tell them Hope.

Until fear came barging down the middle of the road, headlights blinding and I stood trapped in that fierce blaze, stunned and sidelined because suddenly it didn’t seem like my little bit could ever be enough, to actually save someone from a dark eternity. It took a while, nearly 12 long months to realise that it was a lie, because Christ is enough for me, and for them and for everyone, and I’m ready to step out again, because I’m realising more than ever, that time is short. So will you pray for me, for courage and boldness and I’ll pray for you too, and perhaps together we can fulfil the destiny we have here on earth to share the Good News?