Opus 2016-302: Slow Good, Fast Evil

When the Bible talks about God’s blessings the picture I get is a gentle rain.  A withdrawal of that blessing is often not noticed at first.  When it talks about His wrath I see storms, earthquakes, floods and hail.  I am trying to think of a time when the gifts of God are seen as overwhelming.  God tends to work slowly. 

This would follow a pattern I have seen in life.  It usually takes a long time to build up the good things but they can be destroyed in a moment.  Think of spending 30 years raising godly children and having them murdered by a drunk driver.  Think of spending a summer bringing a crop to maturity and having it destroyed by a hail storm.  Think of a life doing good deeds but refusing to bend your knee to the God of the universe.

It seems like I can gain 10 pounds over a few weeks of feasting and it takes me the rest of the year to get it off.  The key to weight loss though is not the number of calories in a meal but the decision before the meal to choose restraint or hedonism.  That decision is what every smoker ignores when they say, “I can quit any time I want”.  It is what the obese denies when they say, “One more won’t hurt”.  It is what the sinner ignores when they say, “Later”.

We age one second at a time.  When I saw myself in a video recently I wandered who the old man was.  Seriously, I could not recognize myself even though I look at myself in the mirror every day.  It creeps up on you.  We destroy or build our lives one decision at a time.  God is patient.  That means that we will have sixty chances every minute to change our minds.  We will have sixty minutes every hour to change our destinations.  The glory it that is it is almost never too late.

Almost.

Live the day in light of tomorrow.

homo unius libri