While We Still Have Time
Psalm 103:14–16 NASB
14 For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust. 15 As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. 16 When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, And its place acknowledges it no longer.
If life is as quick as a blade of grass, what are we living for?
Recently, I saw my cousin for the first time in nearly twenty years. We stood there catching up, trying to compress two decades into a short conversation. She met my two older boys for the first time. We laughed. We reminisced.
And I felt it—that quiet realization:
Time does not stop.
Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were kids playing in the backyard?
The older I get, the more I realize this simple truth: life is short.
The psalmist puts it plainly. God knows our frame. He is mindful that we are dust. Our lives flourish like grass—and then the wind passes over it, and it is gone.
Keeping death in mind does not have to be morbid. It’s meant to be clarifying.
If life can pass as quickly as a whisper then the question becomes unavoidable:
What am I living for?
Where am I placing my greatest efforts?
What will I spend my short lived time doing?
Here’s the subtle danger: we assume we have time.
We assume we’ll eventually finish the task.
Eventually schedule that dinner.
Eventually say “I love you.”
Eventually repair that relationship.
Eventually say yes to Jesus.
But “eventually” is not promised.
None of our lives are promised nor due to us. Life feels long until you realize the last 20 years have gone by like a whisper.
And still, we find ourselves distracted from this reality.
I get it. Bills need to be paid. Kids have activities. Work stretches into late hours. Friends need attention. Some days it feels like we barely have time to make dinner. I find myself rushing through bedtime so I can finish work. Thinking about work during dinner. Living in the next moment instead of the present one—while life is quietly unfolding in front of me.
And the clock never stops.
There are two truths that we must remember: We will die and we cannot avoid loss. Every human being will come to the same fate, death.
Every human being will face both. Whether it is the loss of a loved one, a job, health, or a dream—loss will find us.
Yet James writes something surprising:
James 1:2–4 NASB
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
How can James say this? Why would a trial be something to meet with joy?
Because pain has a way of producing in us a life we could not find without it. Trials, if we allow them, shape us into people who look more like Jesus—and that is something worth rejoicing in.
But loss does something else, too. It strips life down to what truly matters.
When people approach the end of their lives, they rarely wish they had worked more hours. They rarely long for a better car or more possessions.
Instead, they wish they had loved more deeply.
Given more freely.
Spent more time with the people in front of them.
Loss and pain, if we allow them, bring clarity and simplicity.
They remind us that we are alive to feel it.
Lent is an invitation to remember we have one life. Can I invite you in this season?
To love while we can.
To reconcile while we can.
To say yes to Jesus today, not someday.
To be present in the small, ordinary moments that quietly become our whole life.
There is only one place we’ll find what we’re truly aching for. It’s in Jesus.
A life wasted on Him is a life truly lived.
Matthew 16:25 NASB
25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
