April 27 What's in Your Dash

April 27

What’s in Your Dash

Ec 3:1 To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 

Springtime is wonderful. Flowers are blooming and the new grass is growing and everything looks so fresh and clean. I especially love the bushes that grow wild and have such a display of white and pink flowers. Such beautiful and delicate flowers unfortunately are gone much too soon. I wish they could stay for weeks, but that is not how those bushes were designed to grow.

Springtime brings on school graduations, with idealistic students completing some phase of their educations with dreams, hopes and expectations about their future.

The television is running ads for bridal shop open houses as weddings are planned and brides to be have so many decisions to make. What kind of dress? Who will be bridesmaids, flowers, cake, invitations, etc etc. Mothers and daughters are lost in a frenzy of activity planning the perfect wedding, for the most beautiful bride ever.

There is a 50^th wedding anniversary we will be attending for some good friends we have known for almost all 50 years of their marriage. It seems but a short time ago we were all young marrieds and now we are old marrieds.

It reminds me of a popular song from a few decades back, “Turn Turn Turn” written by Pete Seeger and popularized by the Byrds.  It was essentially some verses from the 3^rd Chapter of Ecclesiastes.

Ec 3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

Stop!  Is there a purpose to this meditation? Or have I slipped into melancholia? OK, perhaps I need to explain what is on my mind today.

Life is short. It flies away like dust in the wind. One moment it is all in the future and the next it seems to be all in the past.  

I was recently doing some genealogy research in a cemetery and was wishing I had been able to talk to the people who were now represented by only a cold slab of granite which provided only the barest information. It gave their name, then a birth year and the year they died. But I was most interested in one other piece of information nearly every tombstone contains. The “dash”  (-) as in 1925 – 1990.  That dash represents everything they did between birth and death. Their childhood, graduation, marriage, raising their family, their jobs, where they lived and how they spent their golden years.

So the meditation for today is “What will be in your dash?”  Will it be only you were born and died?  Somewhere and sometime I heard a haunting quotation.

“Were we put here only to gather a few sticks and then fly away?”

But fortunately the dash of a tombstone is not the most important record of our lives. Paul mentions it in the book of Philippians.

Php 4:3 And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.

We find that phrase Book of Life several times in the book of Revelation.  The first mention is when Christ is speaking about the seven churches and came to Sardis where He said;

Re 3:4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. 5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

The most important thing you can do is to ensure your name is written in the Lamb’s book of Life.

Re 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great,

stand before God; and the books were opened:

and another book was opened, which is the book of life..

Our devotion for today is to think on the dash and reflect on how quickly life slips away. Most people who read this will have accepted Christ as their Savior and their names are written in the book of life. But beyond that we should stir ourselves to get busy with what we want to accomplish spiritually for Christ. What spiritual goals do you have that you have not yet accomplished?  What things are in your “spiritual bucket list”? Read through the Bible in a year? Memorize the books of the Bible? Memorize some portion of scripture? Study to show thyself approved? Tell someone close to you about their need of Christ? What? 

     Please do not tell me you have no spiritual goals, plans or aspirations! Let this be a reminder that you have only today. Tomorrow is but a hope, not a promise. Do not pile all your spiritual goals on tomorrow and hope you get them done. The old saying is still true.

“Only what’s done for Christ will last”  Ok I will stop nagging. But we all need a little nudge from time to time. Now instead of walking around singing “Turn, turn, turn”,  think on these things.

1Pe 1:24  For all flesh is as grass,

and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.

The grass withereth,

and the flower thereof falleth away.