Joy For All SeasonsSample

Life flies by, doesn’t it? Time roars by with apologies to no one. Time is an avalanche that seems to gather speed as the years fly by in a blur of memories, heartache, happiness, and challenges. How can we grasp and hold onto this precious commodity called “time”? Why does life slip through our fingers like water through a sieve? One of the realizations that will reckon a life as glorious is that this life was never meant to last forever. The glory of life is found in its sure and certain passing. Life is always moving at a rapid and purposeful speed, isn’t it? Nothing ever remains the same, and that is what makes each moment a grand gift and causes each ordinary day to become a treasure of eternal value. One of the dearest lessons of wringing the absolute joy and wonder out of life is the ability to maintain a thankful heart through every season. A lifestyle of thanksgiving has the miraculous power of turning trials into triumphs and morphing pain into purpose. Learn to appreciate what you have today before time and regret cause you to appreciate what you had yesterday. You know all those things you have always planned to do … all of those great things that you have dreamed about accomplishing with your life? You should go and do them … today if possible. Tomorrow has not been promised to us … and today is the greatest gift that has ever been given. We were not really made for “time," were we? We are creatures of eternity, and so this life is not all that defines us, fulfills us, or renews us. Today will evaporate like the dew on the morning grass. But the value of the vapor that defines the life we have been given is found in the priceless and unending stuff of which eternity is made. “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) Joyful Thought to Ponder: If you could give advice to the 18-year-old you, what would your advice be?