Only One Life…

Saturday evening, my niece asked, “Aunt Marcia, where did you get your reddish-blonde hair?” Her question caused me to pause. I thought everyone knew that my Gramps was a red-head.

Then I remembered that my niece was born after Gramps had passed away. She possibly never saw a color photo of him. And, she might not know that even though his name was Oscar, everyone called him “Red.”

Soon, there will be no one left who remembers Oscar Merman “Red” Lawrence, or his beautiful bride, Alice Modena Myers Lawrence. Life is so very brief.

I had the same thought as I visited Israel. We walked where kings had walked. We saw the terraced fortress of Herod at Masada:

We saw the remains of the palace of King David:

We saw the foundations of ordinary houses:

We saw the remains of aqueducts that carried life-preserving water:

We saw many things that many people had given their strength, and perhaps their lives to build. But the people are all gone, only the stones remain.

Life is so very brief, and we are so very small. And yet, as King David wrote:

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” – Psalm 8:3-4 NIV

In the grand scheme of eternity, we are nothing more than a blip of light on a radar screen. It’s amazing that the Eternal God, who has no beginning and no end, should care for our brief lives. And yet He does.

He knows when we begin and when we end. He knows where the blip should be on the radar screen. He knows the path He has for us. He knows the sphere of influence in which He has placed us in. He knows what He wants to accomplish in and through us. Not only does God know us – He loves us.

And because of that love we are more than a blip on a screen.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” – Jeremiah 31:3 NIV

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” – 1 John 4:10

Though David’s palace is gone we remember David. Why? David’s life counted for something because God loved David and David loved God. We know that David was not perfect, and yet he was a man “after God’s own heart.” We know that much of David’s life is forgotten, but what he did for the Lord will never be forgotten – not by the Lord.

People will forget you and me, just as my Gramps is being forgotten. My own grandson will probably not know that his red hair came from my Gramps. And, who knows, perhaps Gramps’ red hair came from King David; many believe David was a red-head.

One day, everything we work so hard for will be crumbled ruins. How comforting to know that what we do for the Lord will last! What will future generations remember about you?