By Elizabeth Prata
Excerpts from Chapel Library’s Free Grace Broadcaster Issue #251. “Time Is Exceedingly Precious”. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758).
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.—Ephesians 5:16
We ought to esteem time very precious because we are uncertain of its continuance. We know that it is very short, but we know not how short. We know not how little of it remains—whether a year, or several years, or only a month, a week, or a day. We are every day uncertain whether that day will not be the last, or whether we are to have the whole day. There is nothing that experience doth more verify than this…How much more would many men prize their time if they knew that they had but a few months or a few days more to live! And certainly, a wise man will prize his time the more, since he knows not but that it will be so with himself.
Tragedy!
https://www.facebook.com/polkcountysheriff/videos/1670433018546401
I follow Polk County, FL Sheriff Grady Judd. I like his approach to Law Enforcement. He’s wise, funny, and transparent. He does a morning briefing highlighting a coffee shop of the day and then goes on to show one funny or silly case, which always end with a serious warning. ‘Florida Man’ is real.
He also puts up one cartoonized scene with a different law enforcement moment that had ended in an arrest, also funny. In the program ‘Stop Arm Saturday’ he seriously discusses how important it is to stop for school buses. And in a new outreach, Polk County has ice cream trucks that distribute ice cream for free to rotating selected communities as a LE Community Outreach.
On the serious side of things, there was apparently a horrific school bus crash the other day. I watched Seriff Judd’s Press Conference regarding this mournful scene. Multiple vehicles were involved, and multiple injuries occurred. Tragically, two deaths also occurred. One of the deaths was a student. A High School girl.
As a career educator, school bus accidents always capture my attention. Those precious little souls aboard the bus being carried to and from school need the highest protection and the most careful care. The highest protection. As Sheriff Judd said, once the child enters the bus “they are ours” and it’s imperative to return them to their family at the end of the day unharmed.
In the Florida incident’s press conference, the Sheriff showed the school bus video, explaining what had happened just prior to and during the crash. The road is a busy one he said. Morning commute loads the road with so much traffic it’s nearly impossible to drive over the speed limit. All 3 vehicles involved were traveling at an appropriate speed under the limit. An oncoming Malibu car weaved over the double yellow line just a bit, and hit the school bus at the rear tire, effectively in an unintentional PIT maneuver. The car ripped off the bus tire, making the bus unstable, which immediately swerved into an oncoming Jeep, then rolled over onto the embankment.
The driver of the Jeep was killed instantly. The Malibu driver sustained injuries. A student on the bus was killed. A total of 35 people were transported. Though some sustained serious injuries, all are expected to recover.
The Malibu was driven by a nursing student, who at this time is not being charged with anything. She volunteered for a blood draw and cooperated fully with vehicular homicide investigators and was not found to have been on her cell phone nor impaired in any way.
The Sheriff emphasized that accidents can happen “in the blink an eye”. It was instant. No one saw it coming. No one expected it. It could not be avoided. Likely the young man driving his Jeep to work was listening to music, or just planning his day. In one second, he is in his Jeep, the next second, he is in his eternity.
One second the High Schooler is joshing with friends on the bus, maybe thinking about her first day of cheer practice, the next second she is in her eternity.
We know our days are numbered, but it’s so hard to fathom the suddenness of death and the immediacy of landing in eternity. Situations like the Polk County Bus crash brings these things to mind. The Superintendent was choked up, saying it was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his career when he met with the parents. One second here. The next second…gone.
for He says, “At a favorable time I listened to you, And on a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is “a favorable time,” behold, now is “a day of salvation“. (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS ON THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, …But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:7-8, 13).
Have you settled your eternity? Do you know where you will spend it? Our sins make gaining heaven impossible. We may not enter that holy abode. But the Lord Jesus made a way. He descended to earth, lived a perfectly sinless life, and offered Himself to be slain as the sacrificial lamb. God poured out His wrath for sin upon Jesus while on the cross, who then died. He rose again after three days and ascended to heaven. If you believe in Jesus is Savior and His work on the cross and repent of your sins then the wrath due you is already poured out onto Jesus instead. He substituted for you in exhausting God’s wrath for your sin in your place.
Do not delay settling your account with God. Today is the day.
