A Thousand Years in Your sight are but as yesterday when spent, nothing more to You than a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4,¹wcv&²)

¶ Looking back through eighty years of humanity here on earth, by the Grace of God, I am fit-as-a-fiddle and still decked out in the finest of fettle age has to offer. However, as far as the Seasons go, it seems as though I have journeyed through three of them and into my fourth in the twinkling of an eye.

Where did they go?

What I cherished way back when, if I genuinely “cherished” anything at all, now resembles nothing more than a summer morning meadow taken down at noon by the reaper’s scythe and before nightfall, bundled for the barn. Truth be known, I would not have been stacked in the “Good Farmer’s Barn”; veritably, I was about to be burned with the briar, and the bramble, not to mention, stacked with the stones of stumbling! Neither would I have turned on a dime had not the Divine Intervention of a Friend, Who sticks closer than a brother, descended in the Greatest of Loving Condescension on my behalf just in the Nick Of Time. There are no “Two Ways” about it: “ONE” did, “In The Nick Of Time” – “Save Me Nine”!!!  Nine What? The Eternal Fate of Nine Nimrods! The King of Loving Condenscion not only saved my hide, but with His Own Blood, purchased my Eternal Soul!!!  He set me free!!!  Why?  “It is simply² for Freedom that Christ sets us free!” (Galations 5:1)  

What I now hold in the highest esteem, I wish I had “Known” about back in the Spring of My Years.

¶ Having journeyed, through what seems to be the better part of a century into the Winter of My Years, life seems to have been, at times, no more than four fleeting seasons; some bright and sunny, some rather dark and stormy.  Nonetheless, knowing what I “Know” now, or should I say, Who I “Know” now, has brought me to a “Place”  where the lives of others and, indeed, Life Itself, have never been more dear to me. Never, through the Revealing Eyes of the Spirit, has the Love of God and the Love for my fellow man been more dear to me!  Instead of dreading the two Spirits we all have divine appointments with; the Rider On The Pale Horse and the ONE “Whose Eyes are as Flames of Fire”, I can, with the greatest of confidence, say to the Rider On The Pale Horse, “Tell me, Death, where is your sting?” for I KNOW the One Whose Eyes are as Flames of Fire will, with open arms, greet me with a most loving “Welcome Home!” We will, indeed, all “Return to the dust from which we came”, and we will indeed,  all “Stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ”, some on the “Day of Dead Reckoning” at the “Great White Throne Judfement Seat of Christ”, and some on the “Day of Rewards” at the “Great Marriage Supper of the Lamb”. Although there are more than Two Roads Outta Here, there Ain’t No Two Ways About It, only One will Take You Home!!!  (Genesis 3:19, Psalm 90:3)

The fallen “Nature” of man is a Master at convincing the man himself that he will somehow “Rest High Upon The Mountain”, “Cruise The Universe”, “Find Himself In A Better Place, Resting In Peace”, or that perhaps he somehow has the power to just “Deny It All”, as if it’s going to obey him. Quite to the contrary, the Scriptures declare, “There is a way that seems so right to man, but the paths of it lead nowhere but straight to hell!”. (Proverbs 14:2,¹wcv)  Again the Scriptures declare, “Lest you Be BORN AGAIN OF THE SPIRIT, you will not see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)  “It is appointed man ‘Once to Die’, and then ‘The Judgement’.” (Hebrews 9:27)   Jesus Christ says, “I Am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE – NO ONE goes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) And finally, the Lord looks at those who say they are His, with all compassion, and says, “Why do you call Me LORD, and NOT do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)

I am here to inform you that there is an ETERNITY OF DIFFERENCE between “Resting High Upon the Mountain”, “Cruising The Universe”, “Being in a Better Place Now”, being “A Good Person”, even being “Churched,” and TRULY being “BORN AGAIN OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD.”

There is only One Way Home! “FOR WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS FREEDOM!” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

¶ I shudder to think of where I might be today had not the All-Powerful Hand of Divine Intervention descended upon me in the Summer of My Years, for until I was nearly forty years of age, I was, in all my ways, a Rebel and a Rounder, Hellbent on Destruction. GODLESS!

 Now in these deep and weighty things

Where Life, Death, Choice, and Chance,

Like thoughts aflight they skirt the eye,

Out around the gates they dance.

 

Where choices chosen, choose in turn,

How your road does rise and fall.

The road ahead, she’s all laid out;

Don’t we reap just what we sow!?!

 

How short it was and folly filled,

All my friends had fled.

What was that place I wakened in

To face the Living Dead?      {Weighty Things / Will Callery / ©william & Cynthia Pub. ©2012 BMI}

5 Without God, in the “natural” realm of this Present, Evil World, we are unwittingly carried away as in a flood, (not only the seemingly slow, gentle flow of the River of Time, which does, All In Time, prove to be deceivingly swift with treacherous undercurrents that are nothing less than deadly, but also in the “natural” realm of this Present, Evil World, without God, we are swept away by even greater Niagaras of Deception; deluges of vanity; the love of money, fame, and fortune, covetousness, lust, pride, doctrines of men, spiritisms, doctrines of demons, and for some, even witchcraft, and sorcery. Then on the other hand we have religious pride, self-righteousness, man-made religious structures, feigned spirituality, false prophets, hirelings, harlots, fleecers of the flock, and wolves all dressed up like sheep, just to name a few.²)  In the Natural we are nothing more than ships passing in the night²; In the morning we flourish, at noon we wither, and by nightfall comes-a-cropper² for the harvest, the grim reaper². (Psalm 90:5,6 ¹wcv&²)

6 In the Morning we flourish and grow, by evening we are cut down, and by nightfall, bundled for the barn.  (Psalm 90:6, ¹wcv&²)

9 Without You, O Lord, Our days pass away neath the many innumerable, enchanting, and diverse shades of deception cast upon the earth by the refracting of the majestic Light of Truth through the bewitching jewels in the glimmering breastplate of the Black Swan who soars high above the understanding and the comprehension of the so-called, Natural Man.  in the end, Void of the Spirit of God and Blinded to the Light of the Truth by the many enticing and mesmerizing shades and shadows of deception, completely overwhelmed by the accumulation of stature and stuff, instead of “Dancing the Dance Of All Dances” in that City Not Made By The Hands Of Man, we are, by fits and starts of stormy reckoning, soon carried away on the winds of Judgement. Without You, O Lord, we squander our years as tall tales told, as braggarts at the bar sailing away with Plato on the Ship of Fools!  (Psalm 90:9,¹wcv&²)

10 The days of our years are threescore and ten, and if by some vigorous constitution, they be fourscore they are for some, nothing more than years of labor and sorrow, for others, they may be years full of business, prosperity, and ease, no matter which, they are soon cut off and we either fly away or fall away.   (Psalm 90:10,¹wcv&²)

The Days of our years are threescore and ten,                         

Like a slow movin’ freight they’re soon round the bend

Off in the distance that lone whistle lows,

Like a ghost in the night, tell me,

Where do they go?

 

In the days of my youth in my Grandfather’s house

There was whistling and singing and a Misty Blue Cloud

That fell all around us from heaven, I know,

But off in the night

That lonesome whistle did low.

 

The wind and the whistle, they must be next of kin,

We wait on the Train, then we’re Gone With the Wind.

We all come and go on that slow movin’ freight.

What you do while you’re here,

Do before it’s too late,

Before that lone whistle lows.

 

Way out yonder in the dark of the night

That slow movin’ freight, she ain’t burning daylight.

No! She’s a fast movin’ flyer rounding the bend,

Like the Days of Our Youth,

She’s Gone With the Wind.

 

Like a ghost in the night, she comes and she goes

Into the Beyond where that Lone Whistles lows.

We’ve all got a ticket to ride on that Train

To that Last Whistle Stop where we meet face to face,

Where we meet Him face to face.

 

The wind and the whistle, they must be next of kin,

We wait on the Train, then we’re Gone With the Wind.

We all come and go on that slow movin’ freight.

What you do while you’re here,

Do before it’s too late,

Before that lone whistle lows.    

 

{Ghost Train ©Will Callery / William & Cynthia Pub. ©2006, BMI, Based on Ps.90:10}

And so, just what is “IT” we are to “DO” before it’s too late?

¶ It is no easy task to get a handle on that long lost, yet excellent art of “Numbering Our Days”, so as not to be deceived by our own calculations concerning TIME, as did “A certain wealthy fella whose industry brought forth wealth unimaginable and whose ground brought forth an astounding abundance of crops.” “My, my”, says he, “What in the world shall I do?” “Why I will tear down my barns, my granaries, and my storehouses and build greater ones in which to store my grain, and my goods, and I will build an impenetrable vault in which to store my silver, and my gold. I will then say to my soul, ‘Oh my Soul, eat, drink, and be merry, for you are about to live a life of pleasure and ease. You are set for life’.”  But that night God said to the man, “YOU FOOL, THIS IS THE NIGHT YOUR SOUL IS TO BE REQUIRED OF YOU.” (Luke 12:20, ¹wcv&²)

12 Teach us, O Lord, to “Number Our Days” that we may fill our hearts and rule our minds with, (not the crafty, weathercock wisdom of this world, not the gilded, vainglorious wisdom of philosophers, nor the sometimes oh-so-humble, and at other times, whip-cracking wisdom of religion void of the Spirit, promoted by Prancing Peacocks, Hot Air Balloons, and Notorious Beggars, and certainly not the counterfeit of every cutie-pie bumper-sticker-cliche that crosses our minds, all of which, of all of the above, far, far too many mis-take for the “Voice of God”), NO!… Teach us, Oh Lord, to “Number Our Days” that we might fill our hearts, that our hearts might rule our minds, with the Wisdom that comes from above, the Wisdom of God, which only comes by “Waiting Upon the Lord” for the Illumination of the Revelatory Power of the Holy Spirit; “For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM.” (2 Corinthians 3:17) + (Isaiah 40:31, James 3:17, Proverbs 2:1-7, 1 Corinthians 3:19)

SUMMARY

¶ Wherever we end up in eternity, whatever our destination might be, and like genders, there are only two, we will look back and realize that, compared to the humanity we just stepped out of and the eternity that we just stepped into, we will, All In Time, realize, that we were only here on earth but for an hour or two…

…which brings to my memory something that the Lord said to me years ago, “Can you not even spend an hour or two² with ME…?”  (Matthew 26:40-45, ¹wcv&²)

“Teach us, O Lord, to Number Our Days, for a Thousand Years in Your sight are but as yesterday when spent, when past, nothing more than a watch in the night.” (v.4,¹wcv&²)

ALL IN TIME by Will, written by Annah Callery & Will Callery, ©William & Cynthia Pub. ©2012, BMI

 

 

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