Crossed The Line

Somewhere I crossed a line of looking at my life in terms of ‘what should I do today?’ to ‘I don’t have much time left!’ On the one side of the line, life is endless and I never practically or daily thought of life in terms of when it ends. Well, I knew life had an end to it, but I never thought about it. Just kind of took things as they came. Do well and be nice to others and someday way down the line somewhere, it will all be accounted for…you know when I someday meet Jesus. The end was always quite off in the blurry distance.

Maybe it’s because I’m in my forties my perspective has shifted. Now, I think about the end all the time, and, am I using my time wisely, or what can I do before my life comes to an end, or, there isn’t much time left, or, what can I do with the time I have left? Even though I don’t know when I am going to die, every day I feel like – if I had to be judged today, by Jesus…if I died today, would I be invited to heaven? It’s this salvation mentality. It’s not something that I am intentional about. It’s just there. I don’t know why I think like this. Each new day makes me really focus on my salvation and what I am doing about it – am I doing enough, serving enough, boldly preaching enough, honoring enough, praising enough, praying enough? I don’t know.

And honestly, most days, I feel like I don’t deserve heaven. Not if I died today.

Even though I am in love with Jesus above all my other relationships, I feel so far short of deserving an eternity with him. I feel like the more I know him, the cleaner I become, and the more powerful I become; but at the same time, my old sins, my hidden sins, my evident unbelief, my existing sins, my future sins – they are all under a light brighter than ever. It’s like stadium lights on a petri dish. I feel like all my muck – past, present and future- is naked, exposed and, well, just so out there. And I feel like I have such a huge mess to clean up before that last day. I feel like I have mountains of forgiveness to beg for before that last day.

I feel like it is urgent for me to really pinpoint the size and scope of my personal chasm of unbelief (cause we all have it – no matter how saved we Christians think we are – we all have a certain degree of unbelief), and finally, I feel like I only have a short time to really make a spiritual difference in the lives of my future generations…to lock it in that from me on out, we are fall-face-down-followers-of-Christ.

Then on top of all this chaos of feeling unworthy and knowing it’s true, I doubly feel like that my deep conviction for Christ’s love – that I am so in love – I feel completely out of place in the real world. Only when I am reading the Bible or certain writings from biblical scholars do I feel like I am in my own skin.

I don’t know if any of you reading this can understand what I am talking about. But I think if you are pursuing a life with Christ, you may someday resonate with this awkwardness, urgency, unworthy, yet more whole than ever, feeling. Psalm 90 – written by Moses – was truly what assuaged this feeling today.