This Breath

Your days are numbered, counted out, and your allotted time will be spent; that is, you will someday be found no more upon this earth. There is a time before you ever drew breath, and from that first inspiration you’ll ultimately expire. The initial intake of air is breathed into you without consent, in such manner is the last taken, and no intervening breath can you claim ownership over.

Your life is not your own, save by grace, so how should we then spend our time when another gives it to us?

The gift of life, one day required,
should prove a great return,
and when some day to be retired,
what shall th’account have earned?

I’ll say I want a rich reward
whene’re the day shall come,
to hear, I pray, from my sweet LORD
the blessed words, “Well done.”

Breathe deep the breath given you, lean into this wonderful life, and live so that the reaper’s scythe can little dread bear you. Invest yourself in Him who is faithful, and lose all fear in His Love. So inarticulate, this is to call the lost unto Jesus.

And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!”
And [Jesus] said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

Luke 23:42-43