…So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12 (The Amplified Bible)
In all my life, never have I been so confronted with stories of people dying young and ‘prematurely’ than in the past few years. Social Media has made the spread of the news of these untimely deaths even more apparent and more touching. I have seen display pictures and media posts with photos of young people plucked off just as their lives began to bud – never to blossom; stars rudely torn down from the sky – deprived of their shining; dreams snuffed out by cold hands – never to be fulfilled… ‘Gone Too Soon’ has become a rather popular obituary phrase. One wonders what is really going on. It is becoming too uncomfortable.
Accidents, stray bullets, diseases, poisonings, complications in childbirth, witchcraft, a sudden slump, neglect, etc., have deprived several youths the promise of a satisfied long life as declared in Psalm 91. If I asked you, you may not need to think for too long to remember someone you knew or heard of who died too young. I think it is the saddest form of loss because all you can think of is what he/she could have become if they were left to live. You see the future ahead of them – gone forever, never to be lived out, never to be experienced, only imagined. And the thought makes you sad. If they were good people, you wonder if death was blind and did not see all the evil doers around… your questions are unanswered.
The purpose of my discourse is not to remind you of the sibling or friend you lost, but to reiterate what you may have already heard about life; to stir up in you a willingness to be more INTENTIONAL and PASSIONATE about your life. Life is more than a gift; it is an assignment. It is not a holiday, but a project. Your life is meant to be LIVED, not frolicked through till you are 40 when you would suddenly jerk up and realize that you are getting closer to the grave. I once heard a wise man say, we all start dying from the day we are born and every passing day counts one day less for one to live.
You are old enough to speak for yourself and old enough to think about what you can do with your time, your family, your friends, your school work, your career, etc. You don’t wait for other people to tell you when to eat, when to sleep, when to bathe, etc., so why do you leave a lot of important links to your living life dependent on people and things? From the day you start cleaning yourself by yourself after you poop, you become responsible for your actions and the way you carry out this mission called LIFE.
So you are 20-something and you still cannot tell what your core values are? You are almost 30 and your friends still influence the class of men/ladies you should date? You are a graduate loafing around because your dream job hasn’t ‘arrived’? You are a beautiful girl trapped in an existence tied around one man just because of his senseless insecurities? You are more concerned about pleasing the people around you than you are in being and staying happy and doing what God wants for you to do? You are waiting to be married in order to have a sense of fulfillment? You are waiting to be made MD in your organization before you can count yourself an achiever?… Now your life is paused, waiting for……… only thou knowest (that is, if you even know). You have died long before you stop breathing.
When people say ‘Life is short’, they are referring to people who died at 80 and still had things they wanted to do but never did. Life, right now seems to be getting briefer by the years. What are you doing with the seconds, minutes, hours and days you have, now that you’re still here?
You are still young, you say; there’s still time to catch up on life…
Think again.
- Sista Mercie
＃Purpose ＃LiveInChrist
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