"Where go the years? Down what tunnel of time are poured the precious days? We are young, and the fires within us burn bright. All the world lies before us and nothing is too great to be done, no challenge too awesome. Then suddenly the days are no more, the years are gone, and the time that remains is little, indeed." (the character Barnabas Sackett from Louis L'Amour's To the Far Blue Mountains)

Today, March 31, 2009, is my 40th birthday. I find myself much in agreement with Barnabas Sackett. In L'Amour's book, Barnabas is the patriarchal character of the Sackett family. Out of desperation and hard times, he makes the move to America and becomes one of the early settlers, starting a long-line of strong frontier men and women who help forge America. However, at one point in all the sailing, exploring, settlement establishing, and conquering, he finds himself at the point he describes above, and he can neither change nor avoid it. He knows he will not live forever, but he cannot help but marvel that his life has moved by so quickly. He still has plans, dreams, and he wants to enjoy the moment, but, too quickly, the moment is gone.

I cannot help but echo it all. Where do go the years? Have four decades of life really gone by me? I still feel much a young man. I have much to learn, much to do with that learning, and I too would go and conquer my world. Should I not become the conquering hero, there are at least the moments, are there not? Are there are not the moments when I walk into my house- my house, passed down to me from my parents and built by my father's own hands? Yet the moments of my father have been gone for 20 years. In my house, can I not pause to look at my wife of 19 years, for she has managed to look more beautiful with those years. No, but I stop to treasure that beauty in her, and that moment is gone. I look at my oldest daughter, achieving and conquering her own world. I would enjoy her moments of success and gain, but they go from me as soon as I recognize them. My older son is learning to face his world with strength and truth, and I would stand with him to soak in the moment. Yet, he is not standing still and neither is time. My younger daughter, full of love and happiness, causes me to enjoy the simplest things of life, and yet, they too refuse to stay in one place. I watch my youngest son in his determined and forging ways, and yet he stays never young but astonishes me daily with signs of growing. I am filled with gratefulness and pride at these moments. However, when I go to grasp those moments, they evaporates- and disappears to where, I do not know. The voice of the apostle James goes with it in a whisper, "Your life is but a vapor....", and I sigh.

My God, you have counted up my years in a bottle, and they are yours. Be they 40 or 80, or any where in between, I find myself with a melancholy happiness and one constant dream. Dear God, you have given me a wealth beyond measure in these things: your love, my family, dear friends, and a passion to minister for you. You know my years. Let me fulfill my dream: That I die not before my years are done. Whatever years You have given me, let me not grasp them and hoard them for I cannot. Let me instead live in full enjoyment of them. Let me use them all for You, and it will be enough- and more.