Only One Life

“Commentary from John Lindsay, CRC’s Operations Director in the Christian Recording Centre recent periodic newsletter follows:

My recent visit to Asia has left me with many images of human toil & hardship. I saw trucks, tractors & cranes carrying heavy loads but in most places men, women & children still provide the muscle to keep things moving.

I also saw the heavy spiritual burden as people responded to the call to prayer, bowed in front of roadside shrines or turned a three metre high prayer wheel. My saddest memory is the lack of joy in their faces or any other sign of visible relief when they had completed their rituals.

Since returning to New Zealand I have wondered whether we, a so-called “developed” country are any better off. Certainly we have better services. We can usually get medical treatment when we need it & it is safe to drink the water from the tap. But as in Asia, there is no joy, no satisfaction.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas we are bombarded with messages telling us how to show our love with things, even though we know that many of those things will be forgotten within a week & put on a shelf to gather dust beside last year’s gifts.

Jesus showed us that time invested in people, & time spent listening to God produce both joy & satisfaction. Time is the one asset given in equal measure to all people – everyone has exactly 24 hours in every day.

We can spend our days carrying our own burden(s), or we can allow God to lift them from us. We can spend them on ourselves, or we can invest our time in others, loving them or helping them in their journey with Christ.”

‘Only on life, ‘twill soon be past, only what is done for Christ will last’