“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
2 Corinthians 12:9 (RSV)
If there was a reel of video images playing back our entire life, it would consists of a series of moments. We cannot recall every detail that happened in our life but we do have a collection of moments stored in the treasury of our minds and hearts. Days, weeks, months and years are condensed into key moments. We have childhood moments that we treasure, memories spent with siblings, cousins and old friends. We remember the sacred moments of our last goodbye to a beloved friend or loved one. We cherish the joyful moment of first meeting a new born addition to our family.
Whether moments bring laughter or tears, they are the moments that compose the playback video entitled “Your life.” I remember a moment in my life when I was so sick with a virus while I had four month old twin babies to care for. My husband was on strike but had an obligation to his union to go to the picket line that day with the other bus drivers who were striking. No one was available to help with the babies and I was too sick and weak to care for them that day, so he took them with him to the picket line.
I packed diapers and bottles and he took them in a twin stroller for a few hours as he attended the picket line, while I was able to rest at home. A newspaper reporter who was covering the strike, came by and took a picture of him with the twins in the stroller and the local newspaper article the next day read, “Bus driver does double duty on picket line.” It was a memorable moment, and we were all amused.
Not every key moment in life makes it to the newspaper, but in every moment, we give Jesus the steering wheel of our lives. We trust Him to calm the storms that come, and we proclaim Him Lord of our life through sickness and health, through the best and the worst of times.
There have been moments where we win battles over sin and moments where we lose, with moments of rebellion followed by moments of repentance. If we reviewed the moments of our lives, some will make us laugh and some will make us cry, some with cause a sense of achievement and others a sense of shame. Our faith waxes and wanes through the different storms of life, but we always pick ourselves up again and keep moving forward, because God’s grace and strength is perfected through our weaknesses.
Thankfully, all those sins we have already confessed to God are removed as far as the east is from the west. So much in my own life video is covered under the redemptive blood of Christ, and that is my living hope. It is those redemptive moments that secure our confidence to keep coming back to God.
Everything in the video of our life that is summed up in this combination of moments, is a brief flashback compared to eternity that we will spend with Jesus. We were created to live eternally, and our present life is the time we are given to live out the key moments from this day onward, in a state of grace.
Lord, thank you for your grace in giving us time and a fresh start to do better, in living every moment for your glory. Amen