By Joel Hess –

Summer is flying by. It gets worse each year as we get older, doesn’t it? Time flies. Kids grow up too fast. Our life goes by too fast.

In light of the brevity of our life on this planet, many people advise their friends to “make the most of it.” “YOLO”, they say. You only live once. Hang out with your family more. Do what you love more. Write a bucket list. Create some memories! Be happy.

This is really a lot of pressure, though, if you think of it. Ughh. I only live once. Therefore I need to do this and this and this. I only have so much time. I need to get it ALL done?! How many more times can I hug my father? How many more times will I go tubing down the Platte with my kids?

Summer, even life, becomes a “to do” list. Pressure and fear wake us up at night with the feeling of inadequacy and incompleteness. That cheesy song “Forever Young” produces tears as we realize we are getting older.

This sort of stress really sucks the joy out of summer.

Relax.

Throw out your bucket list. Stop trying to create memories. What a sad way to live. Making memories is like filling a photo album of the dead…for the dead.

Because of Christ, you have an eternity! You will live forever. And guess what? Like the miracle wine of Cana, the best is yet to come!

Don’t believe Satan who wants you to focus on this world, desperately clinging to it like sand. A world that no longer believes in God, let alone eternity, is condemned to desperately hold on to fleeting time. Time is only a commodity for the dying. For sure, we sinners deserve to live in such futility. But you have been saved! Christ has pulled you out of that sad illusion and placed you into His reality! So start living like it.

When you were born, you began to die and time began to fly. But when you were born again in the name of the Risen Christ, you began to live forever young. There are an eternity of summers ahead of you. Praise our Lord.

So repent of your drifting back to sleep, wake up to this new day! Love your neighbor as yourself. Teach your children well: about the One who is our eternal life now and forever. And look forward to tomorrow no matter what will come, knowing that one day it will come with the blow of the trumpets and the Son of Man descending and all God’s people rising from the dead.

Enjoy the rest of your summer in Christ.