Good Morning, My Dear Friends,
The great theologian and author Leslie Weatherhead was asked to be the commencement speaker at Cambridge University. Most graduation addresses are devoted to challenging the new graduates to take on the problems of the world and solve them. Dr. Weatherhead, however, had chosen a different theme. He titled his address, “Things I Know for Certain,” and he identified three things.
First, he said, life is short. When we are young, the length of time from one Christmas to the next can seem interminable. The older we become, however, the days seem to slip by at an incredible pace. How can it be September of 2024? Whatever happened to 2023? Or 2022, for that matter? We search for all kinds of ways to push back the boundaries and extend our days. A few years ago, a Swedish chemist came up with a special metal bracelet designed to make people live longer. The bracelet sold well until the chemist died at 48. Life is short. It’s short even to those who live the longest.
Second, said the speaker, the most important moment in life is now. Long ago Jesus said to his disciples, “I must work while it is yet day. The night comes when no one can work” (John 9:4). That was his way of saying that since life is short, if there is something that should be done, we need to do it now. This is the reason why Dr. Weatherhead reminded his young friends of the importance of the now. When we are young, life seems without limits. But very quickly we reach the point where the days and weeks run together. We have such a short time to get what life has to offer. If we miss a day, it’s gone forever.
Finally, we make our own decisions or time will make them for us. If we wait too long in making a decision, time will decide it for us. John Oxenham once wrote some thoughtful lines:
But once I pass this way and then no more.
But once, and then the silent door
Swings on its hinges opens, closes
And no more I pass this way.
I’ve often thought that our lives are like tiny rafts with no power except to steer. We are constantly passing opportunities to take a different channel. If we fail to make a choice, time and the river make it for us.
I believe it would be a serious mistake to allow chance to determine what our lives are supposed to be. Life is too precious to be lived that way. If a decision should be made, make it now. If there is a personal crisis to confront, face it today. If there are friendships that need to be strengthened, or a mistake that needs to be corrected, there is no better time for action than now. Today is the best day we will ever have to do what needs to be done. We need to get on with what should be done, for “the night does come.”
Life is too short to be wasted in inaction,
Bruce Jones
Pastor, Imagine Church
