|
WHO REALLY
So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Psalm 90 : 12 Shortly after my 10th birthday, when, chronologically, I was aged 40, I began to think more about the number of my days than the accumulation of my achievements. Now, most people I know that reach this over the hill age, usually mourn (I once sent a friend a sympathy instead of a birthday card for her 40th that actually put things in perspective and achieved the desired effect...it made her laugh), making themselves believe they are half-way through in life on this earth, whereas I shrug off the first four decades, saying to those around me and to myself that I’m only a third of the way through and won’t even reach middle age until 60 (I’m on the Moses time line of living 120 years with clear eye, strength and all the virility I still possess). I know if the Lord desires that we live long enough and are open minded, we will learn so much about ourselves that we may end up bing shocked. For example, I absolutely, without a doubt, knew all about life and was the smartest teenager (wiser than Solomon even) one could ever meet. At a third of the way through my life, I now know only half of what I knew as a teenager, and toward the end of my days here on earth, I will be wise enough to admit that I know very little. Throughout my teens and twenties, I struggled to make it in the sense of becoming well known; internationally famous; the best at whatever field I chose to be a part of. If need be, I’d create my own special niche and accomplish things no one else would do in my lifetime. When those dreams and ideas began to become realities during my 30s, I discovered time was going by too fast for me to be able to achieve all that I had desired in my mind’s eye. I sadly realized that I would need at least half a dozen lifetimes to fulfill all the dreams I had stored away, and then asked the question, Is it really worth it? Will all this gain really be worth losing my eternal soul? Toward the end of the decade, century, millennia and my 30s, I agreed with myself (the best one I could find) that the Lord had given me my taste for the material cravings I had long sought, and that as I was nearing a new phase in life, I could thank Him for all that He had given me thus far, including sustaining me an extra three decades since the electrocution in July 1968. But still, I am human and that makes me imperfect and fallible. Although I have enjoyed the majority of my time since retirement being involved with my church and community in the charitable sense, I find that it isn’t enough to keep me going. Just as the apostle Paul devoted his time to proclaiming the gospel of Christ, yet retained his practice of being a tentmaker, I, too, need to get back to work as it were. I need to have an even balance in life, else I will go mad with boredom, as I have been these last several months. When this happens, I begin to question my existence, throwing out my Moses time line theory, and cry out to God, Why am I still here in this same spot? Why are we wasting time? Bring me Home ‘cause I ain’t doing any good around here! Curiosity gets the better of me. Just how long am I going to be stuck down here on this miserable planet anyway? I contemplate. I get the crazy notion that the internet is vast and anything can be found on it, including just how long I will be stranded on this godforsaken hunk of dirt. So I do a search on life and death and come up with... You’re traveling through another dimension..., says the voice of The Twilight Zone narrator, Rod Serling, within my mind. Okay, I’ll enter the Zone and answer the few questions Death asks of me, and just like a young William Shatner waiting for the piece of paper to materialize (or in this case the digital read out on my life expectancy), the answer of how long a wait I have until I actually get to return Home (barring any unforeseeable incident), is... February 2058. I sit there in front of my computer watching literally, the seconds tick by (it’s something like 1.8 million seconds of life left) while random thoughts enter my head... I still have over 50 years; half a century of life left? Well, what did you expect since you’ve been in the Moses mode most of the time. What a gyp! No way am I settling for 98. Not when I’m that close to reaching 100. So...what are you going to do with over half a century of life left? And then I laugh and nod and remember that the Law says the Lord knows the number of my days and only He will call me Home when the time is right. But still, seeing a death date made me think about my life at this particular moment in time and brought me back to the reality as to what I should be doing with the talents the Lord has bestowed upon me. More of the Master’s words reminds me about the three men who were each given a certain measure of talent, and how two of the servants went out and invested and doubled those talents, while the third played it safe and buried his bag of gold, only to be called evil and wicked and cast out from the Master’s protection. In a storage area on the ranch, I have packed away memories now accumulated by years of dust and cobwebs. In seven years, I have not been on a bicycle (nor am I couch potato), yet there they stand, like sentinels. Bikes made famous by the Tours they represent. They call to me sometimes... Let’s go explore as we once used to. Let’s go have some fun... I never view my website. Not since it made it’s debut over four years ago. I don’t dwell on the past, yet am surrounded by mementos from all three adventures sitting on my office desk and hanging on the nearby walls. I take the time to read the daily fan mail from around the world that arrives via the internet asking advice on how to tour Cuba or the Great Wall of China, and what new adventures am I thinking of doing. I hear the words of an old mentor of mine whispering in my ear... You’ve always been afraid of success, Kevin, because you never thought you’ve deserved it or have earned it... And I nod in agreement, wondering why I made it and other friends, who still struggle, never have. So I take my guilt and energy and turn it into charitable deeds that for the most part go unappreciated, living like a monk these last seven years, doing my penitence. Recently, the human part of me began to emerge once more (never do I agree more with the Bible that tells us how the flesh and spirit war against one another). It began very innocently as all corruption does... I began to peek at my Rand McNally atlas of the united States, feeling as guilty as if I were viewing pornography (to set the record straight, I don’t waste my time with the stuff). Soon thereafter, I pulled out the poster-sized maps of the USA, laying them out on the table and hanging them on the garage walls, taking in the scope and enormity of what lay before me (and I haven’t even consumed the world maps yet). I once more entered the dark, dusty storage area, and, do I dare say it... actually picked up one of my many custom-made bicycles and began working on it, trying it out for old time’s sake, and actually felt a rush back into Adventure Dreamland. I’m in the beginning planning stages on a couple of adventures so vast, they even boggle my mind, and wonder if I can pull them off; wondering still, if I can find the sponsorship to turn these dreams into realities. At this point, I’m not nervous, because I know it’s going to take years of training and preparation to make them succeed, but the heart is pumping; the blood circulating once more. Meanwhile, there are two long delayed projects I’ve been working on this past year now that are about to come to fruition in the next few months. At this point, I’ll keep them a surprise, but you’ll know once the announcements are made via the Home Page of my website. After seven years of low key existence, I wonder how it will be to return to the spotlight.... According to my Deathclock, I have at least half a century to find out. Until next Month, Kevin |
KNOWS...?