Devotional 9-13-13

Milestones

September this year brings the milestone of the 65th anniversary of my birth.  In a letter accompanying a birthday card from my 96-year-old mother, she said she remembers the day like yesterday and gushed some about how she could have held me forever.  She cannot believe it has been 65 years.  O’course, neither can I!

A couple weeks ago in a sermon, I contemplated the characteristics of time.  When looking forward, time seems endless – to the next Christmas, to graduation, to a significant birthday.  When looking back, time has flown so swiftly.

Milestones can be millstones, depressing anchors holding us back, drowning us in the stream of life, weighing us down along the journey.  Or they can be opportunities of gratitude to God or to others with whom we share the journey.

Milestones give me pause for reflection, and may I be so bold as to offer this suggestion as a devotional moment.  Take the time, at milestone events, to give some prayerful thought to your journey through time.  Take time to be aware of the world around – both the beauties of the world and the horrors that plague the evening news – appreciate the beauties, and take an active and prayerful part with other followers of Jesus who grapple with war and hunger and discrimination and homelessness.  Take time to be fully human – to recognize that you are a child of God which makes all of us, that is, ALL of us, sisters and brothers of one another.  And take time to be holy.  Not smoke and magic, not that mysteriously unknown quality we attribute to God, but different.  Holy simply means different.  Be different from the ways of the world which can be self-absorbed and greedy, belligerent and hateful, distrustful and unwelcoming.  Take time to reflect upon being the image of God that others will see.

Take time to “BE”.  Be aware.  Be human.  Be holy.

“Take time to be holy, the world rushes on.
Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like him you might be;
Your friends in your conduct his likeness shall see.”

Rev. Jack Lipphardt