Sieze the Moment

Here is a departure from my usual article, but I want to bring something a bit different this week.

First, note that Jesus was one to "sieze the day," to do things now that needed to be done. I'm sure that many important activities were planned ahead. But much of what we read shows that Jesus' deeds were momentary ones. The healings are an example. He didn't go out and seek people to heal; He reacted to people who were around Him, like the leper in Matthew 8 who said to Him, "Lord, if you are willing, You can make me clean." And He was sleeping in the boat when a great storm arose. Jesus "arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm." And Zacchaeus was sitting in a tree when "Jesus...looked up and saw him, and said to him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house." And, of course, we could go on and on with the momentary service events of Jesus, even to the telling of the story of the good Samaritan. But it brings me to the point of this entry.

I found this poem on the door of a professor's office, Dr. Torbert, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1970. I'm sure by now he is dead or at least not aware that the poem lives on. But I really liked it and need to post it here.

"Small change, my Lord," I say
"This that you ask in pay,
When I could give the livelong incandescent day
Could it my debt defray.
Nay I'd include the range
Of weeks and months, the change
Of seasons, not one moment only; strange
To lifetime bounty you prefer small change.
Why, not to disavow
My debt, I'd servile bow
Beneath thy yoke for eons, take a vow
To serve eternally." He smiled,
"I'll not allow
Such tribute; give one moment only,
But that moment NOW."

2/15/57 Alice C. Torbert Dallas, Texas

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