HOW TIME FLIES

For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.  James 4:14b

I once had the opportunity to help decorate a tugboat. It had been drydocked, cleaned, and refurbished with new equipment and technology, and was ready to be re-christened and put back into use. A party was planned for this reason, and a friend had asked me to help with the decorations. Everything went well except for one problem: the boat was on the Ohio River, and the water had provided a breeding ground for a certain kind of Mayfly. The insects were harmless, but they were massed everywhere. These bugs were in the corners, on the cabinets, in the pilot house, in the bunkrooms, wherever there was a square foot of space, there were a half-dozen of the pests. There was obviously no putting the food out yet, or they would have infested it. It reminded me of the ten plagues in Egypt.

I asked if this was going to interfere with the party, and my friend said, “Don’t worry. They will be gone soon. They only live for about a day!” It was staggering to think that these thousands of neuropteran could hatch, meet, mate, lay eggs, and then die in twenty-four hours. For us, that was a day; for the Mayflies, it was a lifetime.

The eternal God sees us in the same way, yet He still works so much into that short period that we are on earth. But at the same time, we see His urgency concerning salvation, as He tells us, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation”

(II Corinthians 6:2). Truly, our lifetime on earth is relevant. Thank God it can be eternal in Glory.                                                                                                          

Davy L. Troxel