Good morning! It’s a
cool day today, but it promises to be a pleasant day as well. We need rainfall desperately, and are
grateful for God’s provision of the storage of good water underground in many
places which help mitigate the shortage of water from the heavens.
As I posted in social media a few days ago, on November 4 of
this year I will no longer be an instrument of the Kansas Secretary of
State. My notary commission expires the
day before, and I will not be renewing.
I first became a notary 28 or so years ago during my time in
health care. It was a handy thing to
have at that time. Even after my career
in that field was over, it has been nice to have the ability to help friends,
relatives, and neighbors who needed some document notarized. But there comes a time when even a good thing
must end, and that time has come for me as a notary.
In the course of my later years and my retirement from
secular work, I have discontinued or reduced several things in my life that
have become more burdensome, less fulfilling, or more difficult to do. I no longer crawl under houses to fix water
pipes, crawl in attics to run electrical circuits, or crawl under cars to
change the oil. My days of working in
EMS are over. I no longer walk behind a
push lawn mower, even in a small yard. And,
although I still drive at night, it is somewhat more of a challenge, and I don’t
relish the thought of doing so.
I still will get on the roof of my house, but now I make
sure my wife or someone else is with me when I do. I still like to do things out in the garage
where I’ve set up my work space. But I
limit myself more now than I did some years ago regarding how much I lift or
how I deal with things that could be somewhat dicey regarding my safety. I’m just not as nimble and quick as I used to
be.
As it is with these things, so it is with the notary
commission. There just comes a time when
it is right to shed this or that thing that one has held onto for many
years. For me, the notary was something
that is a reminder of how things used to be…of a life in the past. I suppose that as we get older, we tend to
think back perhaps a little more often to those times in the past when we were
more active, more engaged, and more eager.
At least I do that.
When I was growing up, my grandfather lived in the same
community as we. He was in his 90’s and
in generally good health for his age. We
would visit often, and I sometimes stayed the day at their place. I wondered why he liked to talk about the old
days so much when there was so much going on in the present age. That present age was the early to mid 1960’s,
and there was much happening in those days.
The space race, the expansion of peaceful use of the atom, the assassination
of President Kennedy, the Civil Rights movement, the development of the
electronic integrated circuit, and the Cold War, as well as local issues filled
the days. Yet he would much rather have
talked of times in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s as they lived on the prairies
of Nebraska and Kansas.
And I too find myself longing at times to talk with
people much younger than I am about my earlier days. I’m beginning to understand my grandfather’s
penchant for harking back to the old days.
He just wasn’t that concerned about the world situation. Oh, he kept up with things, knew what was
going on, and was conversant in many areas of his modern day. His mind was sharp and he knew what was
happening. But his concern wasn’t so
much the Iron Curtain as it was his relationship with God, and the both
physical as well as spiritual welfare of his family. And I believe that because he genuinely was
looking forward to his transition into the eternal presence of his creator, the
things of his present day, whether good or bad, didn’t bother him much.
There’s a lesson in there for us. Yes, we need to be aware of our surroundings. We need to know of some of the things in the
world that are pressing in one way or another.
We need to know because we need to be salt and light in that world, being
the hands and feet of God as He redeems the creation one act of kindness…one
act of compassion…one act of forgiveness at a time. To do that, we need to have an awareness of
the present situation.
But our true longing…our true desire as Christians…should be
our desire to see the face of the one who loved us to the point that he died on
our behalf, making us righteous and blameless when we appear before Him. So, as we gradually shed those things of the
world from our lives…those things that may well have been good things…that we
may well have once enjoyed or that brought us satisfaction…we know our lives
aren’t becoming empty and void…they are just being filled with an anticipation
of what is yet to come. We can recall
the old days with fondness and gratitude, and can look ahead to finishing the
race and entering into the joy of the Kingdom of God.
Blessings,
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