Years end, but we look for eternal life
Title page of Stray Thoughts
Today's Devotional
The time is short—this day may be
The very last assigned to thee;
So speak that should’st thou ne’er speak more
Thou may’st not this day’s words deplore.
—C. Elliott in Stray Thoughts
With long life will I satisfy him—Psalm 91:16 (KJV).
I get a good deal of comfort out of [the Psalm 91] promise. I don’t think that means a short life down here, seventy years, eighty years, ninety years, or one hundred years. Do you think that any man living would be satisfied if they could live to be one hundred years old and then have to die? Not by a good deal. Suppose Adam had lived until today and had to die tonight, would he be satisfied? Not a bit of it! Not if he had lived a million years, and then had to die.
You know we are all the time coming to the end of things here—the end of the week, the end of the month, the end of the year, the end of schooldays. It is end, end, end all the time. But, thank God, he is going to satisfy us with long life; no end to it, an endless life.
Life is very sweet. I never liked death; I like life. It would be a pretty dark world if death was eternal, and when our loved ones die we are to be eternally separated from them. Thank God, it is not so; we shall be reunited. It is just moving out of this house into a better one; stepping up higher, and living on and on forever. —D. L. Moody
About the author and the source
Charlotte Elliot (1789–1871) was an invalid and poet, author of the famous hymn “Just As I Am,” written shortly after her conversion experience. When Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) determined to let the world see what a man wholly devoted to the Lord could accomplish, he was already a successful evangelist. Following his filling by the Spirit, he led half a million people to Christ, founded a pastoral training school, a church, and a printing house, and authored several books. Others compiled works based on his writings and sermons, too—among them the devotional from which we took today’s entry. We have not been able to ascertain who E. L. was beyond the authorship of Stray Thoughts.
E. L. Stray Thoughts for Every Day in the Year. Oxford: Parker and Co., 1885.
D. L. Moody. The D. L. Moody Year Book: A Living Daily Message from the Words of D. L. Moody, selected by Emma Moody Fitt. East Northfield, MA: The Bookstore, 1900.