Land of Fadeless Day

Life has meaning. Every life touches someone else. Live long and prosper is a good thought and a good blessing.

To live long and prosper is what most of us have as our life's goal. But as someone has said lately, "The idea is to die young...As late as possible."

I love springtime. Next to summer and fall, and winter, springtime is my favorite time of the year. Everything that has been sleeping under the snow wakes up. Summer birds come home and build their nests.

In May we have 'Decoration Day', or Memorial Day, when we take flowers out the the cemeteries and decorate the graves of family and those who gave their lives for our country.

Of course we love the early blooming flowers, the peonies and Irises are usually in abundance at that time. And those are the flowers of choice for Decoration Day.

We always choose the most beautiful fresh flowers for our arrays. We don't pick the old flowers for use in our floral arrangements, even though the old flowers have the sweetest, strongest aroma.

There are many facets of life. Yet it takes death to teach us about life. Life tends to pose more questions than answers.

More of us ought to apply the old Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. This phrase has stuck in my memory, "Sleepwalking toward a destiny we did not choose."

There was an attribution, but it's gotten lost. And, yes, most people are doing just that. The phrase 'we're all going to the same place, just taking different paths,' has cheapened salvation.

That became a catch phrase in the 1970's when it became taboo to tell people their Christian religion didn't measure up to God's standards.

Of course they believed that all who claimed to be Christians were going to heaven. Now it is applied to all religions, and has moved on into everyone is eligible for heaven.

Christians are censored from telling what the scriptures say...it offends people. We weep for humanity.

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We feel as if when young people are taken from us in death that they are like a flower plucked too early. Yet we should rejoice. Those who have prepared are with the Lord.

And I'm reminded of King Hezekiah. Hezekiah was sick unto death. Isaiah the prophet came unto him and told him to prepare, he was going to die. Hezekiah had been a very good king and done many good things. He cried unto God, and God sent Isaiah back and told Hezekiah he had spared him and...

2 Kings 20:6 "And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake."

But Hezekiah's last fifteen years weren't as good as his first years, and Hezekiah also made his son Manasseh his heir to the throne...

2 Kings 21:1 "Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned five and fifty years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hephzibah.

2) And he did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, after the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah cast out before the children of Israel."

Manasseh was wicked, evil, and a large part of why Israel went into captivity.

In the long run maybe growing old isn't everything it is cracked up to be either. For everything there is a time under heaven.

This world is full of paradox. As the Lord said:

Matthew 10:38 "And he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me. 39) He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."