Great Plains Daily Devotional for 10/6/2021

A Realization of Time

What if there were no markers of time?
Age twenty-one would be the last year announced.
Would we slide into middle-age and older
Without worries of another grey hair?

Would we pay more attention to our
sisters and brothers than bunions and
callouses, stiff joints, wrinkles, tiredness,
and all too frequent visits by “Arthur”?

If there was no one to compare our age
to another would we simply enjoy the
days we have and not wonder when it’s our time
to be called to the big mansion in the sky?

In keeping minds and bodies busy
and occupied with the next fun thing
we cease to count decades and instead
name the ways we are serving our faithful God.

Time is a construct of humans, and years
accumulated does not make us more
or less valuable in the eyes of our Creator.
May we live our lives with wonder and hope!

Psalm 8

Lord, our Lord, how majestic
is your name throughout the earth!
You made your glory higher than heaven!

From the mouths of nursing babies
you have laid a strong foundation
because of your foes,
in order to stop vengeful enemies.

When I look up at your skies,
at what your fingers made—
the moon and the stars
that you set firmly in place—
what are human beings
that you think about them;
what are human beings
that you pay attention to them?

You’ve made them only slightly less than divine,
crowning them with glory and grandeur.

You’ve let them rule over your handiwork,
putting everything under their feet—
all sheep and all cattle,
the wild animals too,
the birds in the sky,
the fish of the ocean,
everything that travels the pathways of the sea.
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name
throughout the earth!

Looking around the sanctuary on Sunday mornings, I am impressed with people who are in their nineties and still able to attend worship, continue volunteering as an usher, garden, lead an exercise class, and use computers with ease. Even so, I am aware of many who are decades younger who struggle to walk and talk at the same time because of breathing difficulties.

I call myself a late bloomer because of graduating from college when sixty years old. Although I had a broader understanding of life, in comparison to many of the twenty-year-old students, we were all there to learn from one another. Not a day goes by without learning something. It may as simple as figuring out new chords on my dulcimer, learning a new language, or trying a new recipe. The best days are when I hear someone give an account of how God has been faithful to them when most needed and least expected.

Wherever you find yourself on the spectrum of life, enjoy the wonder and majesty of our Creator and in special relationships with friends and family, pets, and others.

We give thanks for you and pray for God’s love and peace, strength and wonder to uphold you.

-Rev. Marta Wheeler
Omaha: St. Paul Benson
mwheeler@greatplain​sumc.org

Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16