Larry Lilly LLLV18 10-15-2018 What Matters Most, Life’s Duration or Donation?
There is a conversation making the rounds as to the best life, a long one or one that makes a “donation” to enhance the quality of life for someone or many others.
In my book, both are good goals. One is in the Hand of God, who is said to favor some with “extra” years. Here’s a good verse for this:
Psalm 90:10 The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. NKJV).
I gather from the above that life on earth is important, but some of it must be invested in that which will continue eternally. That’s where others enter the picture. The same Psalm gives this insight:
Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Because of life’s brevity, we are encouraged to “order” life in ways to make it count, to develop our gifts to gain wisdom.
Often, we can do something great as the world sees it, such as developing a vaccine to prevent Polio or producing the benefit of Anesthesia. My wife’s grandmother, Gertrude Walker, made many contributions, one being her influence on Joyce and me concerning Jesus Christ. She had a Gold Star on her window as a reminder of the gift of her only son Harley to the American cause in WWII.
The other day I attended the funeral of a friend who had reached the heights of Corporate Pilots, flying transatlantic Jets for a large corporation. He was 84 years young. His wife had passed several months prior. During her battle with Alzheimer’s, Marvin, while suffering from cancer, cared for his wife, his pastor said;
“Marvin told me the most meaningful thing in his life was the privilege of being able to care for Mary Ann.”
Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of Hitler’s Concentration camps, author of “The Hiding Place,” captured the essence of life shortly before her death at age Ninety-One with this:
“The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.” Corrie Ten Boom.
If you haven’t read all of her books and watched her films, you have missed great inspiration. Joy, I’m told, is Jesus, Other’s, and You, in that order.
Larry Lilly
Orderly IT Work. Oral Deckard
There is a conversation making the rounds as to the best life, a long one or one that makes a “donation” to enhance the quality of life for someone or many others.
In my book, both are good goals. One is in the Hand of God, who is said to favor some with “extra” years. Here’s a good verse for this:
Psalm 90:10 The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. NKJV).
I gather from the above that life on earth is important, but some of it must be invested in that which will continue eternally. That’s where others enter the picture. The same Psalm gives this insight:
Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Because of life’s brevity, we are encouraged to “order” life in ways to make it count, to develop our gifts to gain wisdom.
Often, we can do something great as the world sees it, such as developing a vaccine to prevent Polio or producing the benefit of Anesthesia. My wife’s grandmother, Gertrude Walker, made many contributions, one being her influence on Joyce and me concerning Jesus Christ. She had a Gold Star on her window as a reminder of the gift of her only son Harley to the American cause in WWII.
The other day I attended the funeral of a friend who had reached the heights of Corporate Pilots, flying transatlantic Jets for a large corporation. He was 84 years young. His wife had passed several months prior. During her battle with Alzheimer’s, Marvin, while suffering from cancer, cared for his wife, his pastor said;
“Marvin told me the most meaningful thing in his life was the privilege of being able to care for Mary Ann.”
Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of Hitler’s Concentration camps, author of “The Hiding Place,” captured the essence of life shortly before her death at age Ninety-One with this:
“The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.” Corrie Ten Boom.
If you haven’t read all of her books and watched her films, you have missed great inspiration. Joy, I’m told, is Jesus, Other’s, and You, in that order.
Larry Lilly
Orderly IT Work. Oral Deckard
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