This is a burning reminder of how often we forget or neglect our mortality. How many times have we thought, I will do this or that tomorrow? How many of us, if we took the time to revisit the hours of our life, would discover innumerable places when we neglected those things to which we give the highest verbal honors? So many of us confess priorities in our lives which we fail to honor by our actions.

 

When faced with your own mortality, when examining our lives in the perspective of all eternity, are we not but a microcosm? Rather than declare our whole lives as something long and extended, when someone talks about “’till death,” should we not rather remark on how little time that is?

 

What then? Shall we despair of our mortality? No! Rather, we should realize our lives in the manner which they were intended to be lived. As Daniel lived, so let us also neglect no thing, never allowing our idleness to overcome us, nor the fires and emergencies of day to day life overwhelm us, keeping in all the forefront of our mind those things which we hold most dear, never taking an action but that it should further the causes to which we declare our allegiance, and never taking for granted the short time of trial that we experience on this earth.

 

We have been given a blessed flash of time; a time in which we may accomplish many things and serve our God in so many ways. Why should we dilute this great gift? Instead, let us grasp it for all it is worth, and live to honor our King.