First Baptist Church

Every generation of people has lamented the fact that things were not like they used to be. If you are a senior adult, you have seen a lot of changes in your lifetime. My grandparents all knew life before television, indoor plumbing, electricity, running water, washers and dryers, telephones, air travel, or owning an automobile. Today we can hardly imagine life without cell phones, satellite or cable television with 200 stations, computers and internet, microwave ovens, dishwashers, shopping malls, air conditioning, movies on demand, ipods, and all sorts of gadgetry few know how to even use. An older lady I know commented to me not long ago that she had asked her grandkids for some gift ideas as Christmas was approaching. When they gave her some suggestions, she had to tell them she did not even know what the things were! It seems like each day I am hearing of something I’ve never heard of before.

Most of us can remember a simpler time in our life. A time we took for granted as we lived through it. We imagined what life would be like when we got older, moved away from home, got married, got a job, had kids of our own, etc. Probably not one of us ever said, “you know I think this is the best it will ever be.” We all had hopes and dreams as we longed for a tomorrow which promised the fulfillment of all our dreams. It has been said “when we are young we want to get away, when we are old we want to go back; and we spend our lives replacing all the things we leave behind.”

I think the country group Rascal Flats captured the essence pretty well in their hit song Mayberry, released in 2004.

Sometimes it feels like this world is spinning faster
than it did in the old days.
So naturally we have more natural disasters
from the strain of the fast days.
Sunday was, a day of rest,
now its one more day for progress.
Now we can’t slow down, cause more is best.

Chorus

I miss Mayberry, setting on the porch
drinking ice cold cherry coke,
where everything is black and white.
Picking on the six string,
when people walk by and call them by their first name;
watching the clouds role by; bye bye.
Sometime I can hear this whole earth shouting,
through the trees as the wind blows.
Just from my time here up on this mountain
to look through God’s window.
Now I can’t fly but I’ve got two feet
to get me out of here;
above the noise and city streets my worries disappear.

Chorus

I have a dream I’m driving down an old dirt road,
not even listed on a map; I pass a man and son,
carrying a fishing pole but I always wake up,
every time I try to turn back.

Chorus

As much as we would like to do it, turning back the clock is an impossibility. God is gracious in allowing us to cling to precious memories we have. The beauty and durability of glass, pottery, porcelain, steel, and other materials comes only after a process involving great heat. If you look at our lives, most of us started out in simplicity, but through the intense heat that life brings, we are being forged into the objects of God’s desire.

We keep pictures of people who meant a great deal to us even after they are gone because it is important to us to remember who they were. In immeasurable ways they still impact our lives. The truth is that there is more of them in us that we may fully realize or care to admit. We are products of our formative years, through people and experiences in areas of morality, faith, personality, and disposition.

The world keeps on changing, but one day it will stop. Once Jesus Christ returns to earth with His elect, and rules and reigns there will be no such thing as progress anymore. We will have reached perfection! No longer will there be any more death, disease, and dying. No longer will there be worries about impending doom. No longer will all things be temporal, but rather eternal. “When we’ve been there ten thousand years…we’ve no less days…than when we first begun!” In many ways it will be that simpler time we long to enjoy once again! My friend, are you going to be there?

In Christ,

Pastor Allen Raynor