Carrie Underwood has sold more than sixty-five million records worldwide and is the most awarded artist in CMT history. Her faith in Christ is a very public part of her life and career.
Now she is making headlines for another reason.
In a blog post on her official fan website this week, Carrie discussed a fall last November in which she broke her wrist. For the first time, she also revealed that she injured her face.
She writes: “I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but when I came out of surgery the night of my fall, the doctor told [her husband] that he had put between 40-50 stitches in. Now, here we are 7 weeks later and, even though I’ve had the best people helping me, I’m still healing and not quite looking the same.” She adds, “When I am ready to get in front of a camera, I want you all to understand why I might look a bit different.”
Despite her suffering, Carrie’s spirit comes through: “I honestly don’t know how things are going to end up but I do know this: I am grateful. I am grateful that it wasn’t much, much worse. And I am grateful for the people in my life that have been there every step of the way.”
She’s right: “It’s crazy how a freak random accident can change your life.”
Value time more than money
Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Senate Republican, declared yesterday that he will not run for re-election. In another notable transition, NBC announced that Hoda Kotb will replace Matt Lauer as co-host of the Today show.
California residents victimized by the largest wildfire in state history now have another fear: the blazes burned away so much foliage that mudslides are a terrifying threat. The state needs rain to regrow plants and trees that can keep hillsides together, but a half an inch per hour could create high-velocity mud and rock flows.
And the “Heavenly Palace,” China’s first space lab, will crash down to earth in coming months. It will probably miss you: Quartz reports that the odds of its debris hitting a person are “astronomically small.”
Nonetheless, Scripture warns us: “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” (James 4:14). The brevity of life is obvious to anyone who has lived for very long.
Many of us view life as a string with a knot at its end. We cannot see the knot, but we know it’s out there somewhere. Every day, we pull a little more of the string toward ourselves. One day we’ll run out of string and our life will be over.
As a result, we tend to view time as a finite commodity. In one sense, we’re right. Author Eric Barker quotes the Stoic philosopher Seneca: “No person hands out their money to passers-by, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”
As Barker notes, we should be more careful with time than money, because we can get more money, but we cannot get more time.
All of God there is, is in this moment
Viewing time biblically, however, leads us to see our lives not as string that is running out, but as moments that last forever.
“Yesterday” and “tomorrow” are concepts, not realities. There is no such thing as the “past” and the “future.” This moment is the only moment that exists. That’s why God’s word states clearly: “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Yet eternity beckons: “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). That’s why God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Those who reject Jesus “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
How do we reconcile the real-time nature of life with its eternal consequences? By seeing this moment as the intersection of time and eternity.
This moment is our opportunity to live and act on earth so that our works bear fruit in heaven. Every soul we meet today is eternal. Every person we lead to Jesus will thank us forever. Every word that glorifies God will echo in eternity.
When our lives honor our Lord, we will “receive a reward” in paradise (1 Corinthians 3:14). When they do not, we will “suffer loss” of reward in heaven (v. 15).
Our Father provides all we require to fulfill our Kingdom assignment (Philippians 4:19). He gives us the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:27-28), people (Exodus 17:8-13), finances (Matthew 6:31-33), and time (Ecclesiastes 3:1) we need.
There are always enough hours in the days we give to God.
So, the question is not whether we have enough time, but whether we will use fully the time that we have. All of God there is, is in this moment. If we use it for his glory and our good, one day we will hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). And that moment will redeem this moment forever.
Abraham Lincoln: “Die when I may, I would like it to be said of me that I always pulled up a weed and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”
Let’s do the same.
Search
