The first day of Lent and the devotional I downloaded (for teens) told me to go into the garden and find a handful of soil roll it around in my palm and catch hold of the truth that I am not eternal. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ‘is one day nearer than it was yesterday. It went on to say that if we could really grasp the temporary nature of life, we would make each day count. We would fill it to overflowing and not put off doing things until tomorrow. My wasted days are too numerous to count, and I don’t get to do them again. Each day is a once only experience.
Some time last year I wasn’t well. I was laid up in bed listening to the book of Isaiah being read to me by David Suchet. Not in person, you understand but from a Bible app on my phone.
‘In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.” ‘Isaiah 38:1.
Hezekiah had been a good king. When there were enemies massing ready to invade, he took it all before God. He pulled in the prophets to get the word of God. He tore his robes, dressed on sackcloth and ashes and never presumed he could find a way forward without God.
At first he did not object. God was God and who was he to argue But then he did argue. He prayed a really beautiful prayer but tagged onto the end was a request for more years. It Is possible that ideas of life after death hadn’t been threshed out at that point. Death was the end of life, a full stop, not a comma between this life and the next.
God graciously granted Hezekiah’s prayer and gave him extra years. It would be nice to think he used them wisely, but he didn’t. Somewhere along the line ‘God has given me..’. changed to ‘I have done this…’ and, well, he did die the next time around.
I confess I got to thinking that if an Isaiah came to me, and don’t forget I was sick at the time, and told me to put my house in order, because I are going to die, how would I respond?
I would like to think I would not plead for more years. The ones I have had I have filled, mostly. Of course, there is always more to do. I’d like to be more sure that as I stand before Him to hear Him say, ‘My good and faithful servant.’ I’d like to hold in my hand those ten, or those five extra talents added to the ones he gifted me with. I want to carry sheaves. Let me not stand with and old leather bag, encrusted with dirt and crime and inside a single talent rusted at the edges, something I dig up from the ground just before I arrived.
What have I filled my life with that makes me think I really don’t need those extra years? I could point to a marriage I have helped to build. If my husband is respected at the city gate and if he takes his seat among the elders of the land, maybe I was a part of that. I have had a successful career over decades teaching and influencing a generation or two. Maybe they are their better selves because they met me and listened to what I had to say. There are pictures I painted or the poems I wrote that stirred hearts or provoked thoughts. The light given me wasn’t always placed under a bowl on a table. I tried to let my light shine. There are hats and gloves and scarves knitted and given away. I think I talked a good talk. I was out there speaking words of life and power to ears that listened, and I prayed that lives would be transformed. Yes, there is a list of things I have done. Blowing my own trumpet always hits a wrong note.
For all the things I claim to have done, what counts is not what I have done, but what God has done as I have worked with Him. The reason, perhaps, why I have lived well is because He has lived well in me. He is my success.
So would I ask for extra days? The ones Hezekiah asked for and was given? He wasted his. His words turned from ‘God has given me..’ to ‘I have done this…’ I might do that too so it’s not worth the risk. I will not turn my face to the wall. And if my Isaiah doesn’t come to me to warn me of my death? What of my days then? I will be thankful and try to continue to live them, each of them fully.
