Time Is Flying!

More than 25% of this year is gone. Everything we planned to do during that time is either done – or has moved into the next 75% of the year. My own calendar easily shows the loss and I’ve begun marking out the vacation time, beginning in green lines above. Oh, we’ll be gone longer than that, and telling it on line isn’t a problem – our home is never empty! Part of the joy of living is what people deem a “family compound.” That reminds me of a verse, too:

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 KJV)

Perhaps we’ve given up a certain amount of support when we opt for independent privacy. We didn’t opt for privacy on vacation, either – haven’t for several years.  We find it quite pleasurable to share our trips with dear friends – building cords not easily broken.

But that wasn’t the main thought when I thought of calendars – and how little time there is now to prepare for our vacation. What was on my mind was:

Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. (Colossians 4:2-6 KJV)

I must admit that redeeming the time was what I remembered, but when I read the surrounding verses, I came away with much more than that thought. How about the first part: Walk in wisdom toward them that are without? How to we equate that to Solomon’s advice:

My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: (Proverbs 1:15 KJV)

Or:

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, (Ephesians 4:17 KJV)

Or:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14 KJV)

The application in my own life is to maintain my walk with biblical principles, not acting in the midst of a crowd complacently moving through society without making ripples or creating discord. I must move toward those who are without – without the circle of Christian fellowship, without the saving grace of our Lord and God.

Move toward them with truth – which they may not understand and which they may resent when hearing – in loving kindness, just as it came to me. Move toward them after prayer for our Lord’s words to come through me, His message that reaching the lost is why He came:

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10 KJV)

With His help, we can make those moves in love, but not without Him.