“This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot.”
~Ecclesiastes 5:18 (NRSV)
We are to be forgiven for vacillating throughout our lives—rocking between the flesh and the Spirit—whereby we struggle and fight regarding the dual claims over our lives. We want ‘us’, by virtue of all manner of pleasure that is open to us, and so does God want us, via the obedience we are capable of indwelt of the Holy Spirit: the inspiring life of sanctified actualisation.
The journey of one lifetime—our living, breathing minutes connected in series from cradle to grave—can be seen as a fight or, just as equally, the journey replete in God’s grace, which carries us through every exaltation and every humiliation and all between.
Grace – The Common Thread
The same grace that was on display at the mutilation of the Saviour, the reconciliation of humankind, is disposed in your life and mine, through every life, to the extent of every feature of created life. Grace is eternal as it unfolds here, today, always.
This grace that carries us through the journey that is one lifetime sticks with us through every disobedient thick-and-thin, ever disposing to us second chance upon second chance. And that is the love of God—the Almighty Deity who sponsors the whole journey of every lifetime ever ignited.
Grace’s most majestic achievement is, of course, salvation, and that is the choice only one soul, representing one lifetime, can make. I cannot have my father, nor my brother, nor my daughter saved any more than a wish or a prayer. Salvation is a question—with grace the key—every heart and mind must answer of their own accord.
Still, grace extends herself to believer and nonbeliever alike, equally, and passionately, that they may live how they wish, but its wish is that they choose for God.
Think Of Your Life
We may think of things such as our lives vacantly or deliberately, yet how often do we view life from the eternal context—from the position post-death; that is, having lived the entirety of our lives, now with eternity to reflect over that divestment of time.
The journey of one lifetime is what we have.
According to the Teacher of Ecclesiastes we have a “few days” with which to fully experience life. And experience it we will; as sinners and as saints; in good days and bad; in happiness and sadness; in sickness and in health; right until the end.
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What are our lives? With transport of time, from cradle to grave, we live the best we can—a very imperfect journey. Still, we can know God’s forgiveness for the things beyond us and our limited power. Within sensible limits, life is to be enjoyed!
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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