Warning! This might be a “typical Christian” blog post. But when God lays something on your heart and tells you to share it, you open up your laptop (or notebook, or cell phone...or mouth) and you start sharing. Besides with 10 hours of travel to help me think, what better opportunity do I have? So who can believe that christmas is right round the corner? Are you doing that last minute christmas shopping? What a beautiful time to get together with family and friends and celebrate the incredible gift of our precious Lord and savior! The past couple of years I have noticed that christmas looks quite a bit different for my family than it has in the past. People (me) have moved away from home, babies are being born, family members have passed, others have gotten married. And so we, as hard as change may be, become flexible and we adjust. Maybe you can relate. Maybe it’s exciting for you, or maybe a part of you is a little sad that things just cannot be as they once were. Anyways let me get to the real point of this post by sharing a short clip from my day yesterday. Because of the holidays I find myself back in the United States. I had one day in San Diego before I hopped on a train to go and see my precious family in Northern California. My uncle generously let me borrow his vehicle to go and meet up with a friend for coffee. Our meeting spot was about 40 minutes from the house that I was staying at and so I had much time for thinking and contemplating about life. ( Something about me, My mind never stops.) I stopped for a red light and a thought suddenly appeared in my mind. “What if I got in a car accident right now, and died? Would I be okay with dying right now? If I knew that I was going to die right now, would I be satisfied with the way that I lived my life? The way I used my breathes? Would my words and actions be ones that I would be proud of?” This might seem silly to some. But this is just what went through my head in about a 2 second period of time. After a great time of conversation with my friend, I headed home. On the way home I was stopped at a light. When the light turned green the woman driving in front of me started to go and I followed behind, then suddenly she came to an abrupt stop. I hit the back of her car, the sound of our two bumpers hitting together made quite the noise, and that scared the all reason right out of me, (ugh I hate to even think about it) In my mind I had completely destroyed both cars. We pulled over assessed the damaged and to my relief realized it was very minor. But it all happened so incredibly fast I could barely think straight, And in the back of my mind I was reminded of thoughts that I had just hours before. You see it’s easy to go through life thinking we are somehow immune to death. That we have plenty of time. We think “Oh I will serve those people tomorrow.” “I will be nice to my family another day.” “ I will help the next homeless person I see… Besides they would probably just buy alcohol with any money I gave anyways.” We always wait for the”next opportunity”. But with distressed heart I have come to the realization this past year that I absolutely DO NOT have a “next opportunity”. We don’t have the opportunity to serve people tomorrow, we don’t have the opportunity to be kind and loving to our family tomorrow, we don’t have the privilege of serving the poor tomorrow. The reality is, I don’t even have the next 8 hours on this train. Think about the breathe you are breathing, THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE. I might sound like a broken record. I might sound like some ultra paranoid crazy. But I know without any doubt in my mind that death could be right around the corner. And this is something that is burning in my heart. I don’t know about you, but I want to be desperate to live my life well. I want to be desperate to serve the people around me with the same loving kindness that Jesus Christ served with while he was here on earth. I want to freely accept forgiveness, and quickly extend apology. I want to use every moment of the day’s that I am given praising the Lord for the breathe that he has given me, and asking him what he desires of me in that moment that I living. I am going to be honest with you, I don’t know if I have ever had something burn so intensely within me. So this is what I want to ask of you. DO NOT take for granted these precious moments. God has given you many resources. MONEY, if you don’t have money TIME, if you don’t have time a SMILE or GENTLE EMBRACE. USe the resources he has given you. Pour into people it doesn’t matter who you are, if you are young or old, you ALWAYS have something to offer. Do not ignore the burdens God has put inside of you. Passionately pursue them. Give God and the people around you all that you’ve got. Don’t live in fear, but live in the excitement that everything breathe you breathe is valuable moment to give God your best |
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