Urgency in a World of Space and Time – Sunday, September 09, 1984
All that we are and all that we do is real. We are all part of a living world—part of a world that gives us experience, understanding and growth. Like a valley in which a shepherd seeks refuge for his flock, we live in a world that exists in both space and time. Some philosophers have argued that experience is an illusion—that even our lives are not real. But the world is, and we are.
And the fact of our existence provides us with both promise and responsibility. The promise of life is that there is time—time to be happy, time to be productive, time for us to be what God has made us to be. And, because God made us for a purpose, each of us is responsible to fulfill the end of our creations—to complete that making which God began.
This responsibility can sometimes seem a burden. Life is progressive, and the present is ever becoming the past. And. because time seems to be slipping away from us—opportunities forever passing us by—it can appear that there is insufficient time, that God has made a world in which time and space are out of sync. When we are ready to do the right, there may not be a great cause calling us. And, when that cause finally appears, it may find us momentarily weak or unprepared.
But time and time again, the voice of the Lord has comforted us: although the cause of truth is urgent, there is time in which the truth may be told; although opportunity is fleeting, there have always been places and there will yet be places in which to tell the truth, and to be the truth and to fulfill the word and will of the Lord.
There will be future opportunities, but we must not be complacent in the present. For, although opportunity is forever renewing and coming again, it is never twice the same. The world is not a single valley, but many; and we cannot walk them all nor be certain of returning to any we pass through. We must live the truth now and let now be the testimony we leave behind. So that, when we have passed on to other valleys—other spaces in another time—people will say of us: these were shepherds who knew the Shepherd; these were people who passed our way but once, but who made all the difference.
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September 09, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,873