A Sense of Urgency

(I wrote this in April too. It was a good day.)

I wonder if the world will make it until 3004? That is about a 1000 years from now. It seems like a long time but I wonder if it really is. Maybe it is 3004 and we just don’t know it here on earth. It could be. For all that scientists tell us about the ability of man to travel in time and all that—well, I guess it could just as easily be 3004 as it could be 2004 as it could be 10004 if time were reckoned in that manner. A thousand years is a day, and a day is a thousand years. Who can tell the difference?

It is a weary life we live. I am not weary because I lack purpose or because I doubt my identity or because I live in fear of the unknown and the known. I am weary because all the stuff the world worries about has a tendency to weigh down the average traveler. This is the main reason I refuse to watch the news. Someone always wants to borrow my sympathy or my pity or my emotions to satisfy their own sense of urgency. This is not to say that I have no sense of urgency, just not about the same things the world worries about each moment of each day. Hurry up and get the story out; be the first to break the news; get the best pictures. Yee-haw.

I have a sense of urgency about all those (however few they may be) people I have planted seeds in. I see very little response to the work of the Gospel. This is my sense of urgency and I take no comfort from those passages that tell us ‘few will enter.’ I am unhappy about that even if there is little I can do to change it. I Can pray, and I do. Am I wrong to want to see more results from the work I do? Paul said he ‘wished he himself could be cut off from Christ’ to see the Jews accept Christ. I don’t even go that far; although, I wish I did. Probably I don’t work as hard as I think or as I’d like.

Leaves are starting to appear on the branches again. The trees are starting to sense that the sun will be dominant once again; that the snow is done falling; that clouds will soon be scarce. It is like they are awakening after a long winter nap. It’s like going to bed at night, in the darkness and mystery, and awaking in the morning to the light and full disclosure. I see a slight breeze blowing through the trees—another season has come and gone. Another season has awakened with the dawn. And with it the birds, the flowers, the sun, the leaves on trees and the grass in the dirt. Blue skies have erupted and sent the dark gray clouds of winter scurrying away. The watch on my desk irreverently keeps moving forward at the same steady pace that it did yesterday. There is no moment of silence for the death of winter (splendorous and glorious as it may be). Everyone is happy to see the spring sky, everyone that is except the unholy watch.

It is probably called a ‘watch’ because that is its way of reminding us to do just that—watch. ‘Pay attention to me’ it screams with every tick-tock of the second hand. ‘Look at me’ it whines as it glistens in the sweat smoothed over my wrist. ‘Watch me do my job’ it whispers as appointments and events make their way onto the list of ‘things to do and places to go and people to see today.’ And for goodness sake, it’s not like the watch is strapped around my ankle or dangling from my ear. It’s on my wrist where every slight movement of a muscle or tendon beckons me to glance and make certain it is still there. Or it reminds me of its presence on its own by gripping those tiny trees growing out of my wrist and pulling them out by the roots.

My life belongs to God. I write these random thoughts as practice for a day when I can write them with purpose. Until then even these uniform scribblings belong to the Savior. He is the Lord—The Alpha and Omega—of all that I do, write and say.