I want to encourage you to use your memory for a few moments.

Can you remember a time when you were eagerly looking forward to an event that seemed it would never arrive? Time seemed to move so slowly! I’m thinking of molasses!

Maybe, for students, it was an upcoming holiday…. or summer vacation.

Maybe it was a wedding… or a child coming into the world.

Maybe it was the removal  of a cast from a healing broken bone… or recovering from a surgery.

In any case, it seemed that it would never arrive!

When I was nine years old, someone came and took me and a few other boys from what was called the “Primary” Sunday School class to the “Juniors” Sunday School class. A few minutes after we arrived, they took the thirteen-year-olds out of the class and promoted them to the “Intermediate” class. I can still recall the feeling that I had at that moment. In my young brain I could not grasp the idea of EVER getting out of the junior class. As far as I could see, I was stuck there forever!

Later, when I was a freshman in high school I had a similar experience. I was at a basketball game. Some loud-mouthed senior boys were sitting three rows behind me. I remember thinking that it seemed like it would be an eternity before I would be a senior. I couldn’t conceive of the time involved. I was stuck in high school forever!

Since then there have been so many things that I looked forward to… and it seemed that the time would never come!

But, of course, all these things have come and gone. And the things that seemed would never arrive, have long come and gone. They are now dim, distant memories.

I think you can see where I’m heading with this post. The fact that I’m writing this post means that at this moment I’m still alive! The fact that you are reading this post means that at this moment you’re still alive!

Neither of us has yet experienced this thing we call physical death. But we know it’s a certainty. It looms ahead of all of us. The statistic never changes. One out of every one person dies!

For most of us (not all), it always seems distant. Just like a lot of things in this life that we have anticipated in the past seemed distant. Of course, we may not actually look forward to death like we did summer vacation! But the principle applies.

But I think we could probably agree that when it finally does arrive, we will look back on our lives like we look back on that part of our lives that we have already lived! Wow! How did we get here already!

My mom, who died last year, would frequently say during the last several years of her life, “How did I get this old?” She seemed genuinely amazed. Just as I am amazed that I am nearly 63. How did I get to be 63!

So why am I again (Have you read my post “They’re All Dead?”) writing on such a morbid subject?

I am just doing my best to help as many of us as possible get prepared for that inevitable day when we are done with these physical bodies. I’m really not intending to be morbid! If you are in Christ, there’s really nothing to be afraid of! I’m just trying to help us be prepared!

James, the half-brother of the Lord, said it this way, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14)

By the way, today, June 17, happens to be the birthday of my sister, Ginger. She would have been 59 today. She died when she was 20 as a result of a congenital heart problem. Wow! A life of twenty years! It seems so short, doesn’t it? Well, I promise you, the day is coming when 120 years will also seem so short!

So, I urge you, if you are not already doing it, start living in light of eternity!

It’s looming up just ahead! Just on the horizon!

Until then, stay in the battle!

Steve Hall