Every year consists of 365 days. From January 1st to December
31st we are given 8,765.81 hours and how we opt to manage those
hours is up to us. When you break it down, although a year can feel as though
it is here and gone, there is so much in between those twelve months and
whether we choose to take advantage of life or allow life to take advantage of
us.
Life is a precious gift. Every year that comes to a close brings with it
joys as well as losses. I think of the many who were here in the beginning of
2014 and are no longer with us. Life is fleeting, a mist that is here and gone. I don't say this to evoke a sense of somberness, but instead the reality that each moment is fragile and not one we are entitled to. There are chapters in some of our lives that are acute in suffering or loss while other chapters may be brimming with life, joy and blessings. Life was not meant to be predictable nor were we born immortal.
Whether we are given seventeen years or seventy years how we opt to invest our time, our efforts and our heart is a choice that is ours alone. I am confident that when I have taken my last breath that my eternity will be spent in heaven due to investing my faith and heart in a God who is so good, so loving and so just that I am undeserving. But as I look around a world that is teeming with suffering, poverty and uncertainty I find comfort in not only my faith but in how my days are intended to be lived.
This world and our every day isn't meant to fulfill our own personal needs. There is hurt and sadness is so many crevices of our own community, but do we take the time to look? Do we take the opportunity to look with our hearts and not our eyes? Or are we living solely for our weekly paychecks that will enable more fluff on our cake of life? I can say with confidence that when we begin viewing the hearts and needs of others how we live life alters immensely. The ability to love, no strings attach, is what Christ was all about.
It was the summer before my junior year of college that I had the veil lifted from my eyes. I went from a kid thinking I had a pretty solid grasp of life to one who was in awe of how little I knew of the world and needs around me. It was in Minsk, Belarus that my eyes opened and my heart ached for people in a part of the world I knew little to nothing about a few months prior. There was poverty. There were obvious social signs of communisms stronghold years after the walls were torn down. Then there was the sickness of so many I encountered suffering from the after effects of Chernobyl that occurred so long ago. It was on a walk to the local park to meet a friend that it all slapped me in the face. Up until that point it was college loans, exams, finding a summer job and career choices that were my daily stressors. Here, and like so many pinpoints of the map, it was survival, overcoming financial obstacles and breaking from a past riddled in oppression. I was an idiot. It was on a park bench that I realized that then and there I was changed and would never be able, even if I wanted to, be the same.
Now, a lifetime later, I have my moments that I have to reel myself back in thwarting the distractions of the things that really just don't matter and reflect back to Minsk. It is from those moments that I realized life is too short to not love, seek out the needs of others and to live life fully in a way that each day and year can really be one of a kind. It's not always about scurrying around looking for ways to serve, but it's combining that with the ability to relish the beauty of a life we can so often let slip through our fingertips. It's coffee on the couch with your spouse. It's driving with the windows down breathing in the cool air as the sun hits your face. It's baking cookies with your kids or loved ones and staying up late watching a movie. It's looking through old pictures and allowing yourself to laugh and cry. It's sending someone a note in the mail who could really use the encouragement or knowledge that you're thinking of them. There are so many small, 'big,' opportunities we can overlook if we don't pause and make a concerted effort to really live.
So as we embark upon another 365 days and 8,765.81 hours may your 2015 be a journey that will change you from beginning to end. Happy New Year!
Whether we are given seventeen years or seventy years how we opt to invest our time, our efforts and our heart is a choice that is ours alone. I am confident that when I have taken my last breath that my eternity will be spent in heaven due to investing my faith and heart in a God who is so good, so loving and so just that I am undeserving. But as I look around a world that is teeming with suffering, poverty and uncertainty I find comfort in not only my faith but in how my days are intended to be lived.
This world and our every day isn't meant to fulfill our own personal needs. There is hurt and sadness is so many crevices of our own community, but do we take the time to look? Do we take the opportunity to look with our hearts and not our eyes? Or are we living solely for our weekly paychecks that will enable more fluff on our cake of life? I can say with confidence that when we begin viewing the hearts and needs of others how we live life alters immensely. The ability to love, no strings attach, is what Christ was all about.
It was the summer before my junior year of college that I had the veil lifted from my eyes. I went from a kid thinking I had a pretty solid grasp of life to one who was in awe of how little I knew of the world and needs around me. It was in Minsk, Belarus that my eyes opened and my heart ached for people in a part of the world I knew little to nothing about a few months prior. There was poverty. There were obvious social signs of communisms stronghold years after the walls were torn down. Then there was the sickness of so many I encountered suffering from the after effects of Chernobyl that occurred so long ago. It was on a walk to the local park to meet a friend that it all slapped me in the face. Up until that point it was college loans, exams, finding a summer job and career choices that were my daily stressors. Here, and like so many pinpoints of the map, it was survival, overcoming financial obstacles and breaking from a past riddled in oppression. I was an idiot. It was on a park bench that I realized that then and there I was changed and would never be able, even if I wanted to, be the same.
Now, a lifetime later, I have my moments that I have to reel myself back in thwarting the distractions of the things that really just don't matter and reflect back to Minsk. It is from those moments that I realized life is too short to not love, seek out the needs of others and to live life fully in a way that each day and year can really be one of a kind. It's not always about scurrying around looking for ways to serve, but it's combining that with the ability to relish the beauty of a life we can so often let slip through our fingertips. It's coffee on the couch with your spouse. It's driving with the windows down breathing in the cool air as the sun hits your face. It's baking cookies with your kids or loved ones and staying up late watching a movie. It's looking through old pictures and allowing yourself to laugh and cry. It's sending someone a note in the mail who could really use the encouragement or knowledge that you're thinking of them. There are so many small, 'big,' opportunities we can overlook if we don't pause and make a concerted effort to really live.
So as we embark upon another 365 days and 8,765.81 hours may your 2015 be a journey that will change you from beginning to end. Happy New Year!
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