Textures of Text: You Might Not Finish This Post

It’s a glitter globe night.

Hundreds (thousands? more?) of lights flicker across the dark field.

I can’t capture them with my camera.

They rise up into and past the trees.

Rising stars.

Until it seems earth meets sky, and it’s hard to tell where the fireflies end and heaven’s lights begin.

Each flash could represent a life.

One whole earthly life in the span of eternity.

You could die before you finish reading this chapter. I could die while you’re reading it. Today. At any moment. ~Francis Chan

I could die before I finish this blog post.

You could die before you finish reading it.

I could die before you finish reading it.

Today.

At any moment.

On the average day, we forget that our life truly is a vapor. ~Francis Chan

We tend to take life for granted.

At least I do.

I’ll make that phone call tomorrow.

I’ll make that visit next week.

I’ll repair that relationship next month.

Then poof!

One of our lights goes out.

Just. Like. That.

Life, at least on this side of heaven, is so fragile.

Yet I often have a Scarlett O’Hara mindset.

“I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

But what if tomorrow never comes?

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. ~James 4:14 (NLT)

And then there are the times I let myself worry and stress out because my issues are so big.

But are they really? In the overall scheme of things?

Francis has something to say about that, too.

Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.

Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.

Okay then.

I guess it’s not all about me.

It’s all about Him.

My job is simply to shine in the blink that I’m here.

Or as Francis says:

The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. It is His movie. His world. His gift.

This post is a reflection on chapter 2 of Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Find my thoughts on chapter 1 here.

So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
~2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (Message)