By Emmanuel Tobiloba
From the day a person is born, he starts his journey to the grave. It takes an intestinal fortitude to agree that every birthday is a sober reflection of how close we are to the grave. The young men of vigour today will disappear into oblivion tomorrow.
The Hebrew wisdom provides a complete guide to this, “Man is like a flower that flourishes in the morning but dies in the evening.” The holy book likens life to a weaver’s shuttle running to and fro. The ecclesiastical thought summed this; ‘vanity upon vanity, everything is vanity.’
Personally, I believe that an individual’s life isn’t measured by the years he spends on earth but by the change he caused during his life time. Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty- nine years, yet he never went beyond Genesis, only for where he was referenced in the books of Luke 3:37 and 1Chronicles 1:3. Jesus on the other hand, though it will be a great waste of time to count the number of times his name appeared in the book of ages when God spoke to men. His impact on mankind would be FOREVER! And he lived for only thirty-three years. A mighty age disparity between Jesus and Methuselah.
Joshua must have thought there was much time. God kept telling him; ‘Joshua, do not be afraid, nor be discouraged, be strong and be courageous (See Joshua1:6-8; 1:18b; Joshua 8:1; Joshua 11:6). Perhaps, God’s intention was to cause him to be fast with his assignments. The implication of this came when God told him ‘You’ve had a good, long life, but there is a lot of land still to be taken” (See Joshua 13).
Nothing is ever promised tomorrow, we have little time in this place called earth. What makes it more complicated is that there are destinies tied to every individual’s life. The failure of such individual is a failure to preserve posterity. What if Jesus had failed in his assignment? Certainly, we won’t be talking about the salvation given to mankind on a platter of gold. His success in his earthly assignment is what is sustaining mankind. Glory!
The time is now. The future is nowhere. What if tomorrow promises no place for you again? Would you look back at yesterday and today and say “I have made my mark on earth” The bottom line is, there is no time! Tick says the clock, what you have to do, do it! There is something the world is waiting for you to do. It is not the matter of “I will do it”, but there’s need for it to be done today, because nothing ever promised tomorrow.
Come to think of it, what will happen to the posterity of tomorrow if you fail to deliver within the time frame today? I borrow the words of the Ecclesia, “A time to be born and a born to die.”
What mark would you have made when you no longer exist?
Emmanuel Tobiloba is a writer, speaker an educational consultant passionate about educational revolution.