2 Timothy 4:6-7
"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith..."
A backwoods country preacher wrote George Bernard Shaw in 1935, having heard the playwright was particularly adept at brewing coffee a certain way. The pastor was interested in the method and asked Shaw to explain the "recipe." Shaw sent a reply in detail, adding, "I hope this is an honest request and not a surreptitious mode of securing my autograph."
The preacher answered, enclosing Shaw's signature cut out from his letter. He wrote, "Accept my thanks for the recipe. I wrote in good faith so allow me to return what it is you infinitely prize, but which is of no value to me: your autograph."
I laugh whenever I read the above illustration. So many of us live our lives with an eye outward, looking to see if people are watching and admiring us. We wish to create a stage-play model of life, formed with a desire to have every facet of our life admired by others. Life is like a dress-up game with no reality involved.
Christians, first of all, why don't we look upward and see the Lord's guidance for our lives for the day, the week, the months and the years ahead.
Like Shaw, perhaps some of us have a higher estimation of ourselves than is real. May we get a "reality check" of our true worth as a child of God. May we see ourselves as, among other great things, one who has been put here on earth to worship Him, not ourselves.
"Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God" -- William Carey
