Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father . . .
John 13:1
How Old Are You?
How old are you? Thirty-six? Twenty? Sixty? Thirty-four?
How long do you think you will live? To one hundred? Ninety? Eighty? When you think about how long you’ll live, is that how long you think you have left to accomplish what you want to accomplish in the world?
I used to think that I had until the end of my life to accomplish what’s in my heart and mind to accomplish here on earth. But I don’t anymore. My friends and family in their seventies changed the way I look at time. Almost all of them have seriously limited ability to continue accomplishing whatever was in their hearts and minds before seventy.
David was like that. Most commentators agree that when David was about seventy years old, he was no longer able to function as King of Israel. (see 1 Kings 1)
How Long Is Your Tape Measure
Last Sunday Kathy and I went to see Bob Goff, the author of the best selling book Love Does. During his talk, he took a tape measure and held it up as an illustration of the length of a life. Then he asked random people in the audience how old they were, and he cut off portions of the tape measure to represent how much time each person had left. But not how long they had left to live, rather how long each person had left to function, at a level where they could bear fruit for God’s kingdom.
It was sobering.
And it fits with what I’ve seen in the lives of my friends and family in their seventies. Even the lucky ones with no health problems have simply slowed down to the point where their ability to function is constrained.
At the beginning of this post, I asked how old you are. Now I’m asking:
How much time do you have left to finish what God put you on this earth to finish?
If you’re thirty-six years old, you’re more than halfway to the real finish line.
In our text, “Jesus knew his hour had come to depart out of this world, to the Father.”
But you don’t know when the hour will come. And neither do I. I only know this:
It will come sooner than you think.
Good post as usual. Our time is so short. When we’re young we think we’ll live forever. Now that I’m 65 I realize how fast time passes. I wish I knew Bob Goff was in town. I would have gone to see him.