The Parade Is Passing

We Have Passed...

Life is like a parade that passes before our eyes. It comes. Hear the people shouting. It is here. In a few minutes, people crowd the streets. Then it vanishes and is gone. Does life strike you as being just that?

I remember, ah I remember, so many people in the parade. I have stood, as it were, at a window, even though I have also been in the procession. I recall the hearty men of my boyhood, whom I use to hear pray. They are now singing up yonder.

I remember a long parade of saints, who have passed before me and have gone into glory. What a host of friends we have in the unseen world, who are "gone over to the majority." As we grow older, they really are the majority, for our friends on earth are outnumbered by our friends in heaven.

Some of you will fondly remember loved ones who have passed away in the parade. But please remember that you also are in the parade. Though they seem to have passed before you, you have been passing along with them, and soon you will reach the vanishing point. We are all walking in the procession. We are all passing away to the land of substance and reality.

We expect good things to come. We are not inhabitants of this country; we are citizens of the New Jerusalem. We are only shipwrecked here for a while, exiled from home until the boat comes to ferry us across the stream to the land where our true possessions lie.

Life, light, love, and everything is He who has gone before. Jesus is our Forerunner to the place He has prepared for them that love Him. (John 14:2)
C. H. Spurgeon, Beside Still Waters, page 354


"Let us live with urgency. Let us exploit the opportunity of life. Let us not drift. Let us live intentionally... We must not trifle our lives away."
Raymond C. Ortlund