“Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;  looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ…” Titus 2:12, 13 (KJV)

I remember once having the unfortunate experience of walking through a spider’s web. It was not a pleasant feeling. As I was hastily brushing the cobwebs away, and hoping that the weaver was nowhere to be found, my son said, “Mom, do you know how long it took that spider to build his web? And you destroyed it in like mere seconds.”

Well! As thought provoking as that was, I still wasn’t a hundred percent sorry because well, I really don’t like spiders. But at that moment I couldn’t help but see a parallel between the incident and how we live our lives sometimes. How, like that spider, we toil and sweat and build every day, amassing and acquiring things that are so fragile and replaceable. Not that anything is wrong with working hard and having nice things; or seeing and enjoying the fruits of your labor. But what value do we place on these things at the end of the day? “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6:19-21 (KJV)

If someone told you that tomorrow would be your last day on this earth, how would you live out that day? You’re probably thinking to yourself, Nah, nothing like that’s going to happen to me. But can you say that with a hundred percent certainty? Nobody can. We can, more or less, have a good feeling, based on facts that we deem relevant, like age and health etc; but none of us knows the answer to that question. “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” Proverbs 27:1 (ESV).

There were young people who thought they had many years left to live their lives and they didn’t; and others who felt that their time on earth was almost over, but defied everything and are still with us today. No one but God knows whether we have today, tomorrow or sixty years from now. But what if we lived everyday like it was our last? How must different would our lives be?

As believers, if the Lord were to put in His appearance while we were asleep during the night, would we be ready? Do we check at the end of the day before we go to bed to see if we’re in good standing with Him? We check on everything else: the elaborate security systems in our homes, the locks on the doors. How much more important is it to check our lives and hearts before we close our eyes at night? Wouldn’t it be a tragedy for the Lord to return and leave us behind, warm and safe in our beds with all our earthly securities in check, but our lives a mess?

When we were children we prayed the prayer, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. But what about now that we’re adults? This shouldn’t be just a child’s prayer, it should be every believer’s.

Our days are numbered by the Lord. It’s nothing to be sad or weary about, not when we remember that earth is just our temporary home, and that, while we make a comfortable life here for ourselves and our loved ones, it is not our final destination, and we should be living our lives in readiness for our heavenly home. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJV)