Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - OUR DAYS

OUR DAYS

Do you ever wonder how many days you’re allotted? It’s perhaps better we do not know, but that doesn’t mean that God is unaware of such days. It states in Jeremiah:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you

…to give you a future and a hope. 

(Jeremiah 29:11)

We also read in Psalms:

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they were all written, 

The days fashioned for me,

When as yet there were none of them. 

(Psalm 139:16)

This tends to verify what Drs. Lundahl and Widdison talk about in their book The Eternal Journey. When discussing the purposes of earthly life they quote Huffman who says:

I learned that the most important thing we can do on this earth 

is to show consideration, love and kindness to others. 

There are no bonuses for position alone, nor power and wealth. 

We are judged by how we treat people, and what we do for others.*

This all came from an examination of the findings from near death research and various NDE cases that suggest the meaning and purposes of life.**

This in turn agrees with what is said in Ephesians:

 

For we are His workmanship, 

created in Christ Jesus for good works, 

which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. 

(Ephesians 2:10)

Now, if God has ordained beforehand the good works that we are prepared for, it certainly indicates that He, beforehand, had thoughts towards us and fashioned the days for us. And this, in turn, indicates that we had an existence in Heaven before our earthly birth and that a plan was laid out for us at that time. That plan being in His Word that we were too follow.

Now, we all know that the future is not all rosy for any of us and contains a lot of misery for many. Perhaps that is why we are not to look into the future and to take each day as it comes so that we can more readily concentrate on the good works God had previously ordained for us to do. After all, He did say:

…do not worry about tomorrow, 

for tomorrow will worry about its own things. 

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. 

(Matthew 6:34)

Additionally, we are warned about consulting fortune-tellers for…

…the Lord your God forbids you to do such things. 

(Deuteronomy 18:14, NLT)

So, if we are to believe that God has, and knows, the plans He created for us and we aren’t supposed to know the future, we must, therefore, take each day as it comes and not worry about tomorrow even though we all do to some extent. We should concentrate on those good works we were destined to do and that God had prepared beforehand for us to do. And the main good work is, as He has previously told us, to love God and each other. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 12:

…Fear God and keep His commandments,

For this is man’s all. 

(Ecclesiastes 12:13)

It really is something to think about.

*The Eternal Journey p.g. 55 by Craig R. Lundahl, PhD and Harold A. Widdison, PhD

**The Eternal Journey p.g. 53