The Dash Between the Dates

Read: Hebrews 12:1-4

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.                                              1 Corinthians 9:24 

     Cemeteries have always been considered creepy, especially at night. I don’t know how someone could live next to a cemetery. I certainly couldn’t do it. It’s not that I feel like someone is going to come out of the grave or anything like that, but I guess it’s that death is such a morbid thing. It seems as if you would always wake up in the middle of the night with the eerie feeling that something is going on over there. In the daytime, I am fine with cemeteries, and I actually like to walk through and look at what is written on the tombstones, especially the old ones.

     One thing that I have noticed on every single tombstone, whether it is very large and expensive-looking or very small and simple, is they all have a birth date and a death date with a little dash in between. Everything that the person lying beneath the cold stone ever did is wrapped up in that little dash. And that is just it. We all get only one dash through life. We don’t get any restarts or re-dos. When our birth date announces the start of our race through life, we only have one chance to make our life count for Jesus before the stone masons come and chisel in the death date.   

     You are at the beginning of your dash. If you live a normal life, then you still have most of your dash to fill. Don’t waste it on things that will not count for eternity. Perhaps we should strive to live the words of the songwriter who wrote:

I want my life to count for Jesus,

All earthly joys will quickly fade.

No need to add to worldly riches,

I only seek eternal gain.

    Let’s start today to fill the dash between our dates with as many things for Jesus Christ as we can.

Quote of the day: “Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”