Prv 21:1-6, 10-13 / Lk 8:19-21
It’s common wisdom that you never hear a person who’s dying say, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Somehow death brings a measure of clarity that would have been useful decades before. When we look backwards, it is often startling to see how we invested our time and, indeed, invested our hearts.
“What did it all mean?” is a question that will weigh heavier and heavier upon us as the years pass. And we’d better have a good answer, if we are not to despair. So much that seemed important in times past is a puzzle to us now. What were we thinking of? Why were we so down on this or that person? Why was this or that particular victory so crucial to us?
If we are not to meander through life with no vision really large enough to bring home to God, we need to listen to the Spirit now, while there’s still time. Today’s Old Testament reading from Proverbs provides a helpful image. “The good king’s heart is like a stream in the hand of the Lord; He directs it wherever it pleases Him.”
Wouldn’t we like that said of us! What confidence it could give us about the ultimate future! Why not make it happen?
