What Matters

 

What Matters

Looking back from dotage, I clearly see many of the things that I thought mattered. Some surly did. Some did not. At age two, I pulled my older brother from a tank of winter cold water. He had broken the ice and was head down, drowning. I climbed atop an old abandoned cook stove and grasping his kicking feet, lifted him out. Well, we know God did the work. I never could have done such a feat on my own at two years of age. That act mattered.

As a teenager, my cousin and I went miles into Spurlock Cave near Natural Tunnel in Scott County, Va. As far as life’s achievements are concerned, that did not matter. The Lord brought us out alive is what mattered.

Later in life I became adopted into the family of our Lord Jesus. Now, that mattered! Just know this; there are a multitude of events and confrontations in our allotted time on earth. Some matter, some do not. It is important that we take time to fully absorb the things that matter.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: (2) A time to be born, and a time to die;...” 

This passage begins a dissertation on life's events between birth and death and outlines what matters. It teaches us that there is a time for all important parts of our lives and that God is active in every phase of our lives. God and His plan for us is what matters most. We are free to make the choice to serve Him or Mammon.

Little David walked several miles to the battle of Israel and the Philistines. He was carrying food to his brothers. That did not matter much. But, when he arrived and confronted Goliath, that mattered!

Noah labored daily building a giant boat before a sneering crowd, that did not matter much. When the tip of the last visible mountain sank beneath the water of a flooded earth, that mattered.

Jonah fled from God’s direction to go to Niniva and prophesy their pending doom. The fleeing was only a prelude to the storm, casting out of Jonah and his lesson over a three day period in the belly of the whale yielding obedience to God mattered tremendously.

Moses journey leading God’s chosen out of Egypt mattered but not so much as the confronting of the Red Sea and God’s parting its water for them to cross on dry land.

King David looked from his balcony and saw Bathsheba bathing. That did not matter much. However the tragedy it spurned fractured God’s plans for David; that mattered.

Though terrible in context, Jesus’ death did not matter much. However, shedding sacrificial blood, his resurrecting from death and the Grace plan that fulfilled “sanctification by law” matters more than words can tell.

Know God, know peace. Amen. 04/21/21 BLL