What Thoughts Come in the Quiet of Night

We all awake in the middle of the night now and then. As age creeps upon us, it is more often than not we find ourselves lying in bed awake as the world sleeps on without a care.

This was the case last night...and oh, the thoughts! They certainly don't come like that during the day. Thoughts about life and death. Living and dying. Purpose and resolve. Those kind of things.

"We're all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house. Birth 'til death. We travel between the eternities."

So here we are, smack dab in between the thousands of years before Christ and the thousands of years after Christ. So profound is that event that time is accounted by it - B.C. and A.D. Today, as I write this, is September 12, 2010 A.D.

What are we doing here in between once upon a time and kingdom come? What are we accomplishing - we who have been given dominion over earth? The clock never stops ticking to the beat of time as things change from decade to decade. Blocks of time - the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000, 2010. Blocks of time each with their own happenings, peculiarities and distinctions. Life looked less complicated and stressful in the 1930s. With the 40s and 50s we must add the word dangerous as the atom bomb was introduced, the 60s and 70s were a time of self-discovery and freedom, rebellion and revolt. Today we see technology leading the way. Today must be the age mentioned in the Bible when many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. It sure seems like it! The number of commercial airline flights reach upwards of 180,000 per day, and as all the world awakes to instant worldwide communication and information via the internet.

Is this what life is all about? Coming up with new inventions and gadgets to dazzle earth's inhabitants and make us wonderful, smart slaves of the whole system?

Babies are born every day, people die every day.

This is life. And with life comes death - it's part of the package. We can change many things, but we are helpless in this. Life comes to us without choice and the same is true with our end. We have no choice but to bid our farewell.

We are not in control - that makes us pretty puny folk. All of us. Especially if we are brave enough to open the Bible and take a peek. Honestly. There we find the very creator of the earth and its inhabitants speaking. To us. When we listen, the chiseling process takes place. We are chiseled down to size. 

Without His word and His plan, we are a pretty hopeless, helpless lot. Period.

Back to those thoughts in the night. I found myself asking a rather weird question after an intense dream: "Self, what if your job was at a crematorium where you witnessed and assisted, week after week, in the final preparations of the dead? How would you look at life? Would your view of things change? Would you perhaps prioritize your life better? Sift out the trash and hold tightly to the treasures?"

What kind of strange, eerie thought is this? I thought. How and why did I come up with that? I have no clue now, I can't even remember the dream that started it. But the thought lingered. It kept me awake in the middle of the quiet darkness and I began savoring the preciousness of each moment of time. Each tick and tock of the clock. I couldn't go back to sleep as I kept thinking - "Self, you really, really need to use your time wisely and appreciate it while you have it. Don't waste so much of it! Quit taking it for granted. And get to know your Savior, the great dispenser of time here and now on earth, between the eternities. After all, it's all you got. One day at a time."

Right then and there, in that quiet, eerie, yet meaningful, significant darkness, prayer came easy after my mind was rudely interrupted and set to think about becoming more appreciative, trying harder to become the kind of individual who listens to his Maker more and trusts his Maker more and strives to grow into one of those unique people who longs to hear these words someday, that GREAT someday, when creature and creator meet, "Well done, faithful servant. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you..........., take a big step ...............into..........this side of eternity."