A Thought for your Day

One Life

By Frank J. Nihart

Anyone over the age of 40 knows that the older you are the faster time seems to go by.  I know of a gifted athlete who played football for Tulane University.  He was a starting halfback the two years he was there before joining the Army during the Korean Conflict.  While in the Army he played ball for one of the commanding general’s teams in the Pacific theater.

This same athlete-turned soldier played semi-pro baseball when he came back from duty.  He had a few professional baseball teams talking to him.  Here’s where the story gets sad.  The star half-back/first baseman chose liquor over a possibly great future.

He didn’t finish college.  He wasn’t drafted by either a pro football or baseball team.  And even though he had a wife and family of six children, the “bottle” wound up taking away everything.

He became a carpenter and eventually had what the world would consider a respectable job as a foreman/supervisor for a sizable construction company in New Orleans.  Ironically, he helped build the Louisiana Superdome.  If he had made different choices earlier in his life he might have wound up playing in it instead of building it.  He died from cirrhosis of the liver at age sixty five.  He may have lived into his eighties or nineties if he had not drunk for over fifty years.

Some people are given much and do little with it.  Some people are given little and do much with it.  Each of us has a choice to do what is “the best” in our lives each day.  “Whatever you do in word or deed, do it all for the glory of God.”  (Colossians 3:17)

So, whether you’re 20 or 80, it is still important to pray and seek what God would have you do each day.  It’s sort of the opposite of being an alcoholic.  Instead of taking “another drink” you say no to the liquor and yes to Lord.  By the way, I know what I’m talking about because that athlete was my father.

The days pass so swiftly the months come and go.
The years melt away like new fallen snow.
Spring turns to summer, then summer to fall.
Autumn brings winter, then, death comes to call.

Only one life, so soon it will pass.  Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one chance to do His will.  So give to Jesus all your days.
It’s the only life that pays, when you recall, you have but one life.”

(Lanny Wolfe, © 1973, Lanny Wolfe Music, Admin. By Gaither Copyright Management)

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