Yesterday When I Was Young
Recently, my wife and I spent a few days in the western region of North Carolina. We were able to spend some time at The Cove, a retreat grounds maintained by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, enjoying Bible teaching, the beautiful scenery and Christian fellowship. The Cove holds in memory the vast ministry of Billy Graham and his team, but exists primarily as a testimony to the work of God in our day. Later, we were able to tour Biltmore, the historic Vanderbilt home, which stands as a monument to the opulence of the upper crust. I don’t begrudge anyone their success, but I thought the money invested at The Cove was better spent.
As Biltmore was building, the grounds were not nearly as lush as they are today. Much of the immediate area around the castle was greatly eroded by rains and the like. The idea struck that, if the property were managed to a point, nature would take over and create a forest. Millions of trees were imported and planted, but the builders and architects knew that it would be many years, perhaps even one hundred, before the grand vision of natural beauty was realized. What we see today is the product of what was begun over a century ago. Many things in life are like that- not much in the short-term but greatly beneficial in the passage of time.
The things that come to me today are greatly a product of where I have been and what I have done in the past. It is a wise person that can peer into the mist of the future and discern somewhat of the course. We can take the advice of the well-lived, but Scripture is a surer guide. God’s Word tells us we will reap what we sow, and that this law cannot be abrogated. Since God has set this law in motion, to defy it is to mock Him. What I want to come to my children, I must sow in my own life. So it is with my service to God. I must have a dream that stretches beyond my lifetime.
On return from my excursion, I received news that an elderly woman had reached the end of her struggle. She passed from death to life in the ultimate sense. I went to the humble home she shared with her husband and large family to speak with those who had attended her last days. One ceiling at Biltmore is seventy feet high. Hers was scarcely seven feet. As we stood around the bed in which her temple still lay, the family wept as they thanked God and praised the name of Jesus. The tapestries of Biltmore are woven with gold and silver threads, but they said the place to which she had gone had streets of gold.
I believe I know who is really rich. Those who have sown a good life and cultivated a pure faith have a hope beyond price. It takes hold in this life and carries over into the next. And the monuments they leave are not concrete in one sense but more substantial in another. Their influence is written on the hearts of we who have known them. They have been workers, builders, architects, agrarians (name it) in the great cause of all eternity. It’s not too late to get in on the act. Start where you are and use the gifts you have for God. If you have some doubt as to whether it’s worth it- follow the money.
Sterl
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