Agenda

I tend to take life for granted. Most days see me getting up and getting on about life's business without a whole lot of conscious reflection about the meaning of it all. Recent internal and external circumstances, however, have kind of pushed that slumbering question to the surface again. And I've been thinking about it. "It" being the meaning of life. Or in my case, my life.

I won't bore you with the whole progression of my thoughts but I will put down a few of the conclusions I've reached.

1. It's not about me. One of those paradoxes of life but there it is. It's my life but it's definitely not about me. What a sentence of futility it would be, to be limited to my self. It's the grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying, so that it doesn't remain by itself alone. John 12:24

2. Every morning that I wake up is an invitation. It is an invitation to experience forgiveness and mercy. I arrive at this by backwards reasoning: "For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." Malachi 3:6 and "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning." Lamentations 3:22,23 As long as I am on this earth I will fall short of the glory of God and be in need of grace and forgiveness. As long as He gives me life, He has not placed me beyond the reach of His grace. By granting me the breath to wake up, God is granting me the invitation to drink deeply of His grace. Today.

3. My job each day is to learn to have a heart of wisdom. This one I also arrived at by backwards reasoning. "So teach me hourly to contemplate the fleeting character and brevity of my lifetime, that I may present to You a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12 If a heart of wisdom is what I need to have at the end of my life, then it logically follows that the minutes and hours of this day should do something towards arriving at that.

Get over myself. Drink deeply of His grace. Pursue a heart of wisdom. That's the agenda, today and every day. Nice and simple.