What is Life?

These past few weeks we have had a female cardinal pecking away at the windows of our home. Not just one window, but windows in the rooms we happen to be in at the time. She moves from one end of the house to the other as we go about our lives. If I opened the window, I think she would come right in and sit with us. This beautiful creation, with the brightest orange beak you ever saw, has spent her days being busy and not accomplishing anything. 

The Webster's Dictionary describes life as "having an existence" and it says nothing about time itself. Life on earth, I now realize, is in the realm of time. It comes, lives, and dies. 

When I was a young girl, on more than one occasion, my mother said to me, "Life goes by faster the older you get." I am starting to realize what she was speaking about when she said this. Time does not speed up, but the business of our lives takes up more time.

Life as a youngster, in the summers on the farm, was the lazy, hazy days of being in those dreadful hay fields or the wonderful long days spent on the river fishing with my dad.  Those days were the hottest days in the hayfield and they seem to last forever. However, the days on the river were the best and I remember thinking they were the longest, even time for a nap now and then.

This past week we had our youngest grandchild here at the age of 5 months. She, of course, is the best baby, but she is growing so quickly. I look around and our children are not little anymore, but are all grown up with children of their own. It is times like these I remember mother's words of time passing faster as we get older. 

Life itself is a time to enjoy, breathing in every breath the good Lord has given us here on this earth. Take the time to slow down and enjoy those moments of laughter with family and friends. We need to let folks know we care about them, for one day they won't be here with us and we will remember how fast time goes. 

Do we spend the days idly pecking at the windows of life or do we spend it fulfilling what God has us to do, that which is glorifying to Him? This little bird is doing what it knows to do, but it does make me wonder why it does not leave and go to a nest somewhere. Is it trying to figure out what life is all about? That is what a lot of people do, flit around like a bird, trying to figure out life and what it is all about. Then they realize, time has passed and their lives are about over.  

One thing I do know is that life is eternal. Life may be just as a speck of time here on this earth, but it lasts for eternity. We need to figure out why we are here on this earth and get busy before our time has run out. 

Matt 6:25  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?"

Blessings,
gs