ONE OF THOSE THINGS

ONE OF THOSE THINGS

                Well guess what? Today I get to go in for a colonoscopy … Oh joy. So anyway I guess you know what I have been doing for the last couple of days. Nothing but clear liquids and Jello since Wednesday. They put me on a double cleanse because I made the mistake of telling my doctor at one time or another that I have occasional constipation.

                I shouldn’t have told them you know. It only happens if I have had a sudden change in diet or a road trip or something that throws my circadian rhythms off a bit.

                I’m sure I have already given you far more information than you wanted to know, but hey, we all have them at some time in our lives…colonoscopies that is. So at 1:15 today they will sedate me and take a look inside to see what makes me tick.

                At the VA hospital they only sedate you… put you into a sort of “I could care less” state of mind… far less complicated than the cataract surgery I had going on a year ago. Man, I must be falling apart.  Oh well… let the adventure begin.

                70 is such a significant year. It’s when we graduate to a whole new status. It is the number of years promised in the Bible, or even 80 if by reason of good health and vigor we live another ten years.

                As a young person I remember looking at 70 year olds and wondering if they ever contemplated their death. Do they ever ask themselves if they have a future on the other side?

                When we are young and immortal we live with the illusion that we have plenty of time and it isn’t until we reach or approach 70 that we begin to realize just how little time we really had. If you subtract a third of it for sleep plus the time you spent watching TV along with everything else you did in the flesh rather than in the spirit… one has to truly ask how much time they actually spent on eternal things… those things that prepares us for our future on the other side.

                I remember a sort of snapshot moment of reality when I was about 65. Bonnie and I were driving down this street in the fall and we were surrounded on every side by dazzling red and yellow trees. The sky was deep blue and the air was crisp.

                I said to Bonnie, “Look at how beautiful this is… you know… I think we should take more time to savor moments like this. We may only have 10 or 15 more of these changing seasons to enjoy.”  It came as a sort of revelation… and that was five years ago. So there comes a time when you start making your life plans with a view to how much time you have left. You don’t want to take out a 30 year mortgage… and more importantly you begin to ask yourself if you have fulfilled your destiny. Have you done anything related to why God put you on this planet at this particular time?

                70 is an important number in the bible…. 70 nations in the table of nations…70members in the family of Jacob when they went to Egypt to meet Joseph, 70 elders in Israel, 70 elders that went up with Moses on Mt. Sinai to eat and drink with the Lord, 70 disciples sent out by Jesus to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. And there are many more 70s in the Bible and all of them have meaning.

                So, there is another important 70 on the near horizon. Israel turns 70 and once again we ask if we are coming to the end of an era. How much time do we have left on this planet? Are we approaching the fullness of the Gentiles? Are we about to see the beginning of end time events known as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble or the Tribulation? Is it time for the final harvest. Are we nearing the time of our Lord’s return?

                As I look at the world around me and realize that during my lifetime we have gone from black and white TVs and brownie cameras to the global connectivity of the age of the internet. We are surrounded by surveillance cameras and tracked by GPSs and categorized according to our communications by Echelon. Watched from satellites, monetized by debit cards… how often do we sit down and write a letter to someone and put it in an envelope and lick it to seal it and then run it to a mail box at the post office? Not often. Everything has changed… no phone booths… no children playing in the streets, because they are all now jacked into a video game of some kind.

                But sometimes you just have to laugh. None of this shortness of time really matters, because Jesus did something 2000 years ago. He bought us tickets to eternity. He ransomed us. He set us free from the time element because we are in training for something greater. The life we live on this planet is really important, but only in the context in which we are preparing for eternity.

                Without that perspective, then life is really quite meaningless. If we live on this planet as a mere organism, just feeding our face until we die, what is the point? Evolution has robbed several generations of their hope.

                And so, in my 70^th year I am so thankful for my wonderful Lord. I am thankful for what He did and what He continues to do as He walks and talks with us in this life. I can stop and enjoy beautiful fall days, because they make me think about the great artistry of the One who I will meet in the near future.

                One way or the other we are all short-timers. One way or the other, we all have so very much to be thankful for. Yeshua gives meaning to life. He gives us goals and purposes and reasons for living. He lets us know that it is not just this brief time in which we live under the sun. Everything that He is building in our lives is being built for an eternal purpose.

                So… bring it on. A colonoscopy, after all, is just one of those things.