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Letter from Earnest – February 2018

It is a new year and I know that if many of you are like me, you have already failed at some of your New Year’s Resolutions. One of the resolutions that I made this year was to try to live my life in presence tense. I know that some of you are thinking ‘how else would you live it?’ But the truth is, since I was a little boy I have lived most of my life in my mind. Thinking about the past, dealing with regret, and trying to find ways to overcome things that cannot be undone. Or I spend a good deal of time dreaming about the future and what I will accomplish and how wonderful it will be. I turn around and I realize that the bulk of my life has been spent. I hope to have 20 or 30 years left, but I don’t want to live those years regretting or fantasizing. I would like to live them enjoying the now.

I wanted to share with you a paragraph from a message that a friend of mine has been teaching on. Dane Massey is his name…

“With the passing of each new year, I am increasingly aware that time is slipping away. That one of the most valuable commodities given to man is time, for it can never be recaptured. In Ephesians 5:17, Paul’s exhortation is to redeem the time (KJV) and make the most of every opportunity (NIV), because the days are evil. We can assume therefore that the more corrupt (evil) our world is around us, the more difficult and important it will be to make each day and opportunity count. At the end of another year have we done more and accomplished less? Have we accumulated more and invested less? In Col. 1:29 Paul writes to this end, “I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” Notice the balance? Paul works outwardly on the same level that Christ is working inwardly. This is no leisurely stroll through life! The word Paul uses that is translated “strenuously” is the word we get “agonizing” from.  Paul knows how to put in a full day’s work!”

As you go into 2018 be prepared to live in the now. If you need to go back and apologize or make something right, do it! If you ever want the future to become a reality, deal with the challenges of today; don’t while away the hours in ivory towers, but face today and its challenges with the confidence that tomorrow’s dreams will become a reality as you work.

Happy New Year and please remember us in your prayers and when you can, please help us.

Your friend,

 

Earnest