My latest gadget, if you will: Apple’s iPhone. As I’m sure many of you are aware, one of the best features of the iPhone is the applications that are available for download. From games like monopoly to usable tools such as calculators, language translators, the Holy Bible, etc…so much is available with the touch of a finger. The other day, I was browsing the “application store” to check up on the latest and greatest thingamajigs—you know, just passing some time, when I ran across an application called “iDie.” The idea is simple, after downloading the program, you simply enter in your birthdate and it instantly produces an estimate on how many years, hours, minutes, and seconds you have left to live. As morbid curiosity goes, I punched in my info. Looking at the program now, it’s telling me “Your life is 35.365539074% complete. You may expect to be dead at age 76, in 18,031 days, 4 hours, 53 minutes, and 53…52…51…seconds. Apparently, I’m watching the seconds of my life tick away as I’m writing this.
Okay, what’s the point of sharing this with you? Well, over the past couple of years, I’ve had a growing desire to make a difference in the lives of others here in this world—to do my best to bring God’s kingdom upon to this earth. “Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.” When I go to church or hear of some of the most passionate Christians giving up so much to go overseas as missionaries (Africa, India, wherever it may be) it can be natural to feel, at times, that I’m not doing EVERYTHING I can to reach people who need Christ. But, the more I mature in my faith, I’ve come to realize more and more how much we can do here, in our local spheres of influence. We have friends and family members who need us. We have grandparents, sons and daughters, nephews and nieces that call for us.
As I was looking at my life expectancy on the iPhone a couple days ago, it made me think that we really do have a limited amount of time here on this Earth. Put simply, we can only do so much until we break. We can only take on so much as individuals. We are the arms legs of the Holy Spirit. As a whole, we are the body of Christ.
We live in a time in which so much information is thrown at us from all directions on a daily basis. It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century. We have access to so much information. Opportunities to go go go are all around us, spreading us so very thin. I strongly believe one of Satan’s greatest tools is to place guilt on our hearts by using the world around us to relentlessly tell us we can do more and more—that we should be doing BIGGER things for Christ. It’s important that we stay in tune with the Holy Spirit through prayer to find how we can best serve as Christians. I’m confident that through consistent prayer, we can feel content with our role in this life. We can’t do it all. We shouldn’t feel like we have to, either. That’s why we have each other. Together, we can do great things, but alone, we just can’t do it all.
Have a good week!
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