In some respects, eighty years is a long time. I was born thirteen months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, yet today I drive a Japanese manufacturer’s car that was actually assembled in East Liberty, Ohio. The world changes, and it’s dizzying to contemplate all the changes that have occurred in my lifetime.

Nevertheless, eighty years is just a blip on the timeline of the history of the world; and in a world population of eight billion humans, I’m less than a speck, not even statistically significant. Today, January 13th, 2023, I’m going to celebrate anyway, with eight symbolic candles on my birthday pie. (Eighty candles might start a fire or something and make the day more exciting than I want it to be.)

The Bible does a great job of putting all of life in perspective. Compared to eternity, this life is astonishingly brief. And unlike our insignificance here on earth, God knows intimately each one of His own, and each one is precious in His sight.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. James 4:14b

…what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psalms 8:4

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalms 139:13-14

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, John 17:24

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Matthew 25:34 

You may have noticed that the photo at the top of this post has been torn in two, and then patched with tape. My mother tore it in half after she divorced my father. My grandmother rescued it, taped it together, and somehow it has survived until this day, a precious, if somewhat sad, memory. Life is like that. But God, who is rich in mercy, will bind up His beloved, and will one day with His own hand, wipe away every tear, and sin and death will be no more. My this truth be yours. See you in heaven!