1 August, Closing Thoughts
Today is the end of a big, big chapter of my life. It is the end of the most important year of my short life. "Hitherto hath the Lord helped me." I am a different man than I was on August 1, 2005. I left for Mercy Ships in Africa on August 21 and I will arrive home on August 1. It has been almost a solid year away from home and I am ready to settle down.
I'm in Shanghai at our hotel. We love this hotel. Look at this hallway--carpeted, vacuumed, uncluttered, cool. Through a window I can hear the city. It woke up without me and it doesn't need me to operate. I always get nervous on departure days.
God has dealt well with me to give me this year of travel. Life is short. But today it's better to be alive than dead. "He who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion." That's from Ecclesiastes, a book of the Bible that I really like. "All is vanity," Solomon says. ALL. One generation passes aways and another generation comes and there is no remembrance of former things. Do we take these words seriously? The memory of the dead is forgotten. Their love and hatred and their envy perishes. Our days are like a shadow. We could die today and somebody foolish could take our place. What is our life but a vapor?
"All flesh is like grass and all the glory of man like the flower of grass." The Bible is full of this stuff. David and Job would have prayed like this, "Lord, make me know my end and the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am."
So what now? I repeat Herman Melville: "This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet." It's true--Ecclesiastes is hard to swallow. But look at chapter 9:7-10. Those are some practical verses. All in all, take God seriously and don't forget him. Be humble with each other.
Sam
I'm in Shanghai at our hotel. We love this hotel. Look at this hallway--carpeted, vacuumed, uncluttered, cool. Through a window I can hear the city. It woke up without me and it doesn't need me to operate. I always get nervous on departure days.
God has dealt well with me to give me this year of travel. Life is short. But today it's better to be alive than dead. "He who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion." That's from Ecclesiastes, a book of the Bible that I really like. "All is vanity," Solomon says. ALL. One generation passes aways and another generation comes and there is no remembrance of former things. Do we take these words seriously? The memory of the dead is forgotten. Their love and hatred and their envy perishes. Our days are like a shadow. We could die today and somebody foolish could take our place. What is our life but a vapor?
"All flesh is like grass and all the glory of man like the flower of grass." The Bible is full of this stuff. David and Job would have prayed like this, "Lord, make me know my end and the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am."
So what now? I repeat Herman Melville: "This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet." It's true--Ecclesiastes is hard to swallow. But look at chapter 9:7-10. Those are some practical verses. All in all, take God seriously and don't forget him. Be humble with each other.
Sam
posted by Unknown at 10:59 PM
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