So Close in This First Hour

Around here, summer nights often bring sudden storms. Thundering, shaking rumbles become a startling alarm reminding me that men do not comprise the most powerful force on earth. I remember that You never appear to men in sun-bathed meadows, but in fire and flash. You dwell nearer in a thunderstorm.

I doodle through so much of life...sashaying from one task to the next, making phone calls, picking up a broom or a book, going to the movies. So little consequence.

Someone told me recently that most folks live a life of 25,000 hours. Only that. If that is true, and the math bears it out, of how much value is each one of those? How much have I sacrificed if I lose the full value in even one of those hours?

But hours with You are never wasted. Your very presence demands significance. And I think you intend us to understand this, too. I have always though that life is more important than most people suspect.

You gave life, above all precious gifts, and expect me to LIVE it.

For those God foreknew, He also predestined, to be confirmed to the likeness of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called. Those He called, he also justified. Those He justified, He also glorified. --Romans 8:29-30

My life draws an unbroken line from Your glory through all of creation to my own glory, a superb gift of eternity directly from You. 

You make me, you choose me, you call me, you save me, you transform me. You give me Yourself.

This is LIFE. The same life I wake up to every morning. Each of the 25,000 hours gifts from You to be lived with and for You.

You knew this from the creation of the world and You flash Your presence in shining thunderbolts before a rising sun just to say 'Hello.' You want me to know that You are near and sharing Your best. This is the Life You have put in me, miraculous Life, unreproducable Life, resounding with a thunderous crash, echoing Your glory across the whole earth.