Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Jan/77

Contributor - Rev. Jack Ritsema

Title - The World Turns

Topic - Meditation

Eccl. 3 : 11 "He has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out . . ."

"Another year lies ahead. I shall resolve to live better and not waste this year like I did last year. I'll resolve to stop smoking, drinking, cursing, lying. I'll resolve to treat my family better, to remember my friends more often, . . ."

Resolutions passed, resolutions broken. A mist cannot do much but pass away, nor can a flower of the field, blooming today, dead tomorrow. Despite our resolutions our lives fall into the dreary humdrum of routine and old habits. Most of us cannot lift ourselves out of it, but we dread its end. Yet we sense a higher calling, something grand, beautiful, exciting awaiting, if only we could break out.

As a teenager, I spent hours washing, dusting, vacuuming my father's cars to make them shine inside and out. After all, I got to use one for a Saturday night date! But I discovered that every Saturday I started all over again. Worse than that, the cars rusted just as fast as our neighbour's which got the "lick and a promise" treatment on rare occasion.

Later, I discovered the same thing happens no matter what you do. I get up in the morning to go to work. Why? So that I can buy food. Why? So that I can eat and be strong, Why? So that I can work and enjoy life. Why? So that I can sleep at night. Why? So that I can get up in the morning to go to work. Why? So that I can buy food . . . . A vicious deadening cycle. Our only choices seem to be which variation of this humdrum we would prefer- Yet we all end up the same: dead.

I saw some of my high school friends lying in caskets a few days after an auto accident. I asked, what did their lives amount to? Later at Michigan State, my roommate, 19 years old, died suddenly of a brain hemorrage. But this time it was different. He had a beautiful, close walk with God for a number of years. He had helped a mutual friend to meet Jesus and grow in Him. (This mutual friend is now the director of a large campus ministry at the Univ. of Illinois, Urbana.) And he helped me to know the meaning of walking wholeheartedly with God, to do God's Will, and to break out of the vicious deadly cycle of my life. When he died, there was no question of what his life amounted to. It amounted to many lives (including my own( affected eternally for Jesus Christ.

The mist had become a sweet incense; the flower had germinated many seeds; the vicious cycle had become the straight trumpet of the glory of God. All in the name of the eternal Jesus.

Please click the "Back" button of your browser to return to previous page.