shifting

Day 129 

It’s 6:25 pm and it’s still light out. Ah yes, Daylight Saving Time, as all you who did remember to “spring ahead” one hour will know, has arrived. Actually, daylight is not saved. We do not gain an hour of light. We merely shift that hour of light from the morning to the evening. And this shifting is ever so pleasant – a herald of spring and of warmth after a very-cold-at-times-very-snowy-at-others winter. Despite “losing” an hour of sleep, this has got to be one of my favorite days of the year. ‘Course the fact that I managed to get in a two hour nap and a nice long walk helped to make this a rather enjoyable day with or without the shift.

Onward.

2 Corinthians 5:9 “Therefore, we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him.” (NAS)

My mom made a cross stitch of this verse that has hung on the walls of our homes on both sides of the world for as long as I can remember. It is a very convicting verse. I often come to the realization that my ambition in a particular circumstance is not to please him. More often than not, it is to get ahead, to look good in front of others, to glorify myself. But Paul’s ambition, his aim, was to please the Lord.

There’s the other point: he wasn’t trying to please people, to earn the favor of the world. He wanted to please the One before whom he would stand one day to give an account.

What greater goal is there?