Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
Rick Adams, Interim Principal
Director of Youth & Family Ministry
This past week, I was again reminded of how quickly life moves past us as I watched my daughter graduate from high school. How could it be that the little girl who seemingly only yesterday used to bounce on my knee was now walking across the stage to accept her diploma? We measure life with little milestones or mile markers that underscore the significance of various events that dot the landscape of our years. For us as Christians, the first such milestone is Baptism – that event when we are welcomed into the family of God through water and the Word. As we grow in faith through our childhood, more milestones come, like starting our formal Christian education in school, learning to read the Bible for ourselves, and then confirmation. Beyond confirmation, it’s high school, then college graduation. There are many more milestones throughout life, including marriage, the start of a family, purchasing a home, and retirement.
This week, some of our students are experiencing a milestone here at Trinity. The end of the school year brings a mix of emotions. For some, it seems that the year has simply flown by, while for others, time may have seemed to drag. For our eighth graders, next Thursday not only marks the end of a school year, but an end of an era – their grade school years. This end of an era causes me to reflect on how God is right there with us, every step of the way through all of our milestones.
Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” According to the Concordia Self-Study Bible, this verse is telling us that, while no one has taken the full measure of God’s anger, everyone ought to know the measure of his (few) days or he will play the arrogant fool, with no thought of his mortality or of his accountability to God. When I was in high school, I had a religion teacher who liked to say, “We are, today, closer to the end of the world than at any other moment in history.” Now, I don’t know if he was trying to be clever, or if this was just another of his lame attempts at humor, but since this has stayed with me all these years, I guess it was a good piece of teaching. We did a family devotion on this theme the other day that also used the phrase found on many rear view mirrors on cars – objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Is this not true for every milestone in our lives?
To me, the message is pretty clear: God is constantly trying to get our attention that life moves pretty quickly, and we need to keep our eyes focused on Him. It is only with this perspective that life’s milestones gain their significance and value, and it is only by taking this journey in the shadow of Christ’s cross that we have hope for life eternal with our Creator God. This is the message that we hope stays with our graduates as we see them off. May you all experience your lives’ milestones with faith and confidence in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who goes with you every step of the way!