Having A Mid Life Crisis On A Low Budget

In a couple of hours I will turn 40 (wow and I don't feel a day over 39 and a half). Due to the global financial crisis I'm busy planning a low budget mid-life crisis. Fortunately I brought my big Aussie barbecue with me when we moved to Denmark. And in Scandinavia, my big 5 burner screams mid-life crisis! We're planning to eat steak tomorrow which is super expensive in this part of the world (there goes the low budget) . . . so please pray that my loan application gets approved. I know some vegetarians will be critical, but hey, if we were meant to be vegetarians then why did God make all the animals out of meat??? Answer me that Mr skinny tofu breath yoga instructor - answer me that!

In the book of James we are reminded of the brevity of life:

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13-15)

My friend Kirk Cameron has just been running his annual Camp Firefly for terminally ill children. This is a wonderful ministry well worth supporting. But the delusional side effect of failing to see our own terminal illness can be far more life threatening. All of us stand on the knife edge of eternity living under the common grace of God. He has numbered our days and gives us time to repent before the great and terrible day of His wrath. Hell is full of people who envy every saint and sinner that still has breath. Oh what they would give for a chance to turn from their sin and flee to the Savior like the penitent thief on the cross.

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:8-12)

Life is short. In the context of history, and infinitely more in the light of eternity, our lives are brief interludes in God's unfolding and unstoppable plan of redemption. My life must echo Jesus' words when He said that His meat was to do the Father's will. The fact that I will get to eat steak tomorrow is a giant leap up from tofu but a quantum leap short of being in the center of the Father's will! Tomorrow is no guarantee so build on the rock of salvation rather than the sand of human endeavor.

Thank you Lord for each additional breath of air you grant each day. May I preach Your glorious Gospel the only two times I am supposed to - in season and out of season.