Ashes to ashes

Pondering on Ash Wednesday...

Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, Genesis 18:27

Mortality, the world around us doesn't generally encourage the topic. The daily grind is a great distraction from the bigger picture. The world wants you to be busy, and thus we are told to work hard and to buy more - time and again offered the assurance that we can purchase comfort and security. Worse yet, we seek fortune, fame and celebrity -  as then we will be comfortable, known and surely not forgotten. 

Well Dearest Reader, hate to break it to you - but its a crock of shit. You will be forgotten - you are just a speck - the briefest breath - a fleeting moment in time. Even the greatest among us are forgotten by most. To live only for this world is death itself.(John 12:23-50).
You can choose to only live in the moment, to be apathetic  - or selfish - or you can choose to bear witness that you are a part of a much bigger story.  
We are each of us supposed to live this life to the fullest, Christ died not just for your salvation but so that you could enjoy this life now. In the face of hardship and trial we can take comfort in the knowledge that we are loved. The reality is that life is fleeting and as my Aunt Billie June would say, "everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die". 

By the sweat of your brow

    will you have food to eat

until you return to the ground

    from which you were made.

For you were made from dust,

    and to dust you will return.” Genesis 19

I believe that the lost don't need to be told again how lost they are, they instead need to know God loves them in spite of it all. There is right and wrong, there is truth. He punished His own son instead of you. There is MERCY, peace between God and Man was won at Calvary's cross. God is no respecter of persons but He would have walked to Golgotha if only just for you.

"So I walk on uplands unbounded

and know that there is hope

for that which Thou didst mold out of dust

to have consort with things eternal."

- Thanksgiving hymns/The Dead Sea Scrolls