Yep, twenty thousand seventy five days, to be exact! Or put another way, 481,800 hours, or really mind blowing, 28,908,000 minutes!

What am I talking about? I am talking about the fact that 2 days from today, I will be 55 years old..which is another way of saying the facts above! In other words, I have already occupied this world for a big chunk of time! And as I have contemplated these numbers, the Lord has given me a new perspective of time altogether..not just for me, but for all of us! In fact, the day any of us were born (in the US) in any year, there were 859,178 OTHER people also born! If you put that in the perspective of God’s amazing work in forming each one of us uniquely and intimately in our mother’s bodies, it paints an astounding picture of God’s creative ability, and His sovereignty in deciding when and how we come into this world.

What a challenging thought! I wondered when I read that statistic how many of those 850,000+ people are still alive…and how many of them spent or are spending their lives in love with the Lord and serving Him. I also wondered what kind of impact my “group” has had on the world. Are we mostly ordinary people living life and influencing a small-medium group of people? Is there a large group who have been particularly smart that have changed history? How many of “us” are in jail? Or drug addicts? Or missionaries?? It’s a staggering trail that could cause you to wander off into great research and effort if you really had to know those answers!

But, of course, God quickly took those thoughts right down to where they needed to be, and quietly kept prodding me to answer that purpose question for just ONE of those people…me. Spiritual growth is NOT easy, and if we are continually seeking it, God is ALWAYS willing to guide us to the truth about our own lives. And here’s what He showed me..that it’s not really about the quantity, or an accounting of what I’ve done for every hour or minute that He’s given me…it’s about paying attention and being aware! It’s about realizing that I HAVE been blessed with all these years, and hopefully I have spent my time mostly wisely and have been faithful to His call for me to work for Him as often as He needed me to. But it’s ALSO about realizing that if He grants me even one day more, there is still that need, in this dark and lost world of ours, for me to be even MORE aware and more faithful! His work on earth is not done, because He has not sent His son to take us home. And because of that, we ALL need to be watching those minutes, those hours, and those days, and making sure that His Kingdom is not lacking for workers, that it is increasing in number, and that our “group” of birthday people has at least ONE faithful representative!

Here’s to my 481,801st day, and to God be the glory!