If you are from NJ… or are even familiar with Bruce Springsteen… you might have thought about his old friend who was a great baseball player… back in high school. He could throw that speed ball by ya… make ya look like a fool.
If none of what I just wrote made any sense to you… you might want to save this email until a little more water has run under the bridge.
I recently read an article about trees. It was always thought that trees grew more and faster, that they were more productive… when they were young.
Turns out… that isn’t exactly true. Trees grow more, and are more productive the older they get.
They top out in height… but their reach continues to expand.
They produce more oxygen. Which is their purpose.
It is easy to think that our best years are behind us. That our glory days are in the past.
That things will never be the way they used to be.
And that is partly right.
Things are meant to be better.
We are to be “men as trees, walking.” (Mark 8:24)
We are to be more productive in the kingdom the older we get. But productive at what? What is our “oxygen?” What are we to produce?
Our purpose is to glorify God. That is why we are here.
“Glory” is identity. God’s glory is His very being. When He is glorified He is seen for Who He is.
We are to make Him known, to point toward Him, to acknowledge Him… to show others Who He is.
It doesn’t take a “more recent” date of birth or a less gray head of hair. It doesn’t even take hair at all!
It takes heart. A heart that is on fire for God and wants the world to see Jesus.
Your “glory days” are now. They are in front of you.
Being “past your prime” in the kingdom of God means that your pipes have already been filled!
Just as a pump is primed and can only push fluid with any force once all of the air is out…
So we have to be emptied of all of the “past” to allow His “present”… His Gift… to flow through us.
Moses was “past his prime” as he was exiled in the desert. I can hear him saying to Jethro, “You should have seen when…”
Joseph might have had similar moments, “Back when I was in my father’s house…”
Or consider the prodigal son, who thought often of the way things used to be.
Their past prepared them for His future.
On second thought… this applies no matter how old you are. If you have had a yesterday…
Today is your glory day.
In all you do… in every place… in every way… MAKE THE GOD KNOWN!
SDG
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