When I think of fame, I think of silly and vain people. The Robert Downey Jr’s of the world, today’s highest paid actor, are going to die. Fame just vanishes away for the Hollywood star who is dying a lonely death in an apartment or an upscale nursing home. Dean Martin’s final days were a dramatic and sad contrast to his glory days of endless martinis and collaborations with the “rat pack”. Steve Jobs had billions but they couldn’t keep him from dying. Now Jobs’ epic rants and obsessive habits paint the picture of someone all too human. John Wayne, lived bigger than life, but now we just know him from a few crackly videos or a short 8mm of him waving from the open door of a passenger plane. Here today, gone tomorrow. We all die and that’s the reality. Death is the equalizer showing in the end we are really just humans. Tiny creatures in a vast universe. The glory of today can quickly become the disastrous head on collision story of tomorrow. The obituary has not rich and poor section. Everyone is the same and mostly forgotten in just a short while.

The Bible says and I believe with complete certainty that God is watching our lives and every soul has a personal face to face with Him in their future. “It is appointed for man to die and then comes the judgment“. Heb. 9:27. Death and judgment are the sober and ominous reality we must face right now – we may not have tomorrow. Yet most people are living each day, passing their time away, as if their lives and souls were no more important than the next carnal pursuit. The clock is ticking away our time, reminding us that death and judgment are ahead. With each rising and setting of the sun, we should know that our time will come to an end. 

“So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

We may never reach the heights of wealth and fame that some do, but it doesn’t keep us from living through them. The awards shows for best actor, best singer, best news scoop, best human interest story, and best this or that, are a weekly event. And what do we sheep do but turn on the television and give rapt attention to who won and what was said in the acceptance speech. We number our days by filling them with completely meaningless things.

Truth is not overrated. God’s Truth is eternal. Truth is the food for the soul which Jesus says we should eat every word of. Where man’s fame is the fiction, Truth is the fact. To speak God’s Truth to others and to live God’s Truth is to transport our lives above the silly and meaningless things of this life. Fame bows on its knees before Truth. One is straw and the other is gold. If we number our days, we care less about the straw and seek daily to be enriched by the gold. As I look about me and see the faces of men and women, I think about their souls and wonder how they are going to fare in that face to face with the Almighty.

Robert Downey, Jr. is an entertainer dressed up in a plastic suit in front of a video camera. Rich today, but gone tomorrow. His life is important to God, but is God important to Robert Downey, Jr.? The same should be asked about each of us. Do we truly understand that what is important is being ready for tomorrow? Is God’s Truth important to us today? Number your days because they are few, and then comes the judgment.

God bless you. Dan

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