That was the question that my five year old granddaughter Maia asked me this week when she found out that I am 61 years old. After all, 61 years is pretty old when you are only five years old yourself! <\/p>\n
"No, I don't think so," I said. "I want to stick around a while for you," was my answer. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
This brief exchange had me thinking about the conflict that Christians sometimes experience. On the one hand we are human beings made of flesh and blood and – as King Solomon once said – "the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing" (Ecclesiastes 1:8). Who ever said, after having watched a beautiful sunset, "That's enough, I never want to see another one!"? <\/p>\n
God wants us to "prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers" (3 John 1:1). We should enjoy the beauty of nature created by our God. We should meet life's challenges with confidence and courage.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, we know that this physical life is not the real life God intended for us. The apostle Paul wrote: "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Romans 8:21-22).<\/p>\n
The kingdom of God on earth will not only mean true life for us as spirit born children of God, but a better life for all people.<\/p>\n
We are to pray daily for that kingdom to come and yearn for it (Matthew 6:10). Until then, we say with Paul: "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you" (Philippians 1:21-24).<\/p>\n
With these thoughts I wish us all a rewarding Sabbath!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That was the question that my five year old granddaughter Maia asked me this week when she found out that I am 61 years old. After all, 61 years is pretty old when you are only five years old yourself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sabbath-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}