Living in the Midwest, we get to fully experience the four distinct seasons. We had a wonderful fall this year, with pleasant temperatures well into mid-November; but we were still surprised to return from a short trip recently to find our yard buried in leaves. When we left just a few days earlier the leaves had not yet begun to fall. (So THAT’S why they call it fall!)
A few weeks later as I sat drinking coffee in the quiet looking out our window early one morning, I was taken by the large number of leaves gently drifting down from the maple tree to the ground in our front yard. It was very peaceful. Now, this is a serious article, but I must admit that one of the thoughts that came into my mind at that time was Jim Gaffigan’s hilarious comedy bit on fall leaves.
Getting serious….as I watched the leaves falling from the branches, I thought of our lives, and that one day they too will come to an end. We may be aware of the average life expectancies for men and women, but we never know when our own lives will end, only God knows that. For example, my dad lived to nearly 85 years old, while my mom died at age 60. Recently, it surprised me, when meeting with our financial advisor, to see my “death date” in his projections. And, while the projected date was a few years longer than my dad lived to, it was actually much longer than the current average life expectancy for a man in the U.S. (73 years). Obviously, a number of factors will go into any consideration of life expectancy.
Given all of these depressing thoughts, this led me to think of how to best serve God with the time I have left, especially as we approach a new year, when we many times look to make a fresh start. God’s trees go out in a blaze of glory, and so should we. Write your obituary and see what’s missing – what you can still do before it gets printed in the newspaper! We shouldn’t wait until a later time to do some of the things below:
- Go back to church and get serious with our relationship to God and His people.
- Intentionally reconnect relationships with family and friends that have grown cold.
- Pursue that education that we always wanted to.
- Write that book that we always thought we would.
- Take that trip that we’ve always wanted to. Share the good news along the way!
- Learn that new skill (golf, piano, pickleball, drawing) that we have always thought about.
- Read those books that we’ve never taken the time to read.
- Read through the Bible, and get involved in a Bible study to go deeper into His word.
- Join a health club to better care for the bodies we’ve been given.
- Volunteer in a ministry needing help at church. (Me? Work in the nursery?)
- Mentor a younger person coming behind you in business, church or life in general.
- Don’t dwell on those things that you can’t do anymore. Think about those things that you can still do.
And we could add many, many more things to this list. What would you add to my list? What are those things that you are thinking that someday you’ll do?
I understand that some of us have physical, cognitive, or financial reasons that will keep us from doing some of those things, but others don’t. I think of my Mother-in-Law, who as I’ve written before, though physically limited, and in a great deal of pain, still did works of encouragement by making greeting cards to be sent to those serving in the military.
I think often of the quote from British missionary C.T. Studd’s Only One Life, Twill Soon Be Past, that I first read in John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life:
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Or how about the quote from Hunter S. Thompson: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
I want to encourage all of us to live our lives fully for God, in whatever time you may have left in your unique situation. It’s not too late. Run the race. Stay in the battle.
