Today is November 1st. You know what that means? We only have two months left of this decade. Two months, or eight weeks, or as this post is titled; 61 days.
Just 61 days.
Ten years ago, I was ten years old, with dirt under my fingernails and holes in the knees of my jeans. I loved those awful, chewy, artificial candies called dots, the disney movie spirit made me cry, and I lived for playing in the woods above my house, all by myself- just me and my wild, wild imagination. It’s strange to think that in another decade I’ll be thirty… and I’ll probably be looking back at 20 year old me, with the same smirk on my face and fondness in my heart, for all the silly things I cared about, and all the things I didn’t know…
You might be thinking to yourself, so what? Whats the point of counting down the days until the next decade? It’s just another year, like any other year. What’s the point of sitting around analyzing what’s to come, why don’t you just get out there and live?
And I understand that. I do.
I know I can be far too introspective for my own good. But there is something to be said about considering the brevity of life every now and then.
Psalm 90:12 says, ” Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
I had an instructor at discipleship school that followed that command quite literally. After he told us that in class one day, he pulled out his phone, looked at the calendar and announced to us that he was 12,000 and something days old. “On my 13,000th day of being alive, I’m going to go get some ice cream.” He said.
“I always like to celebrate the 1,000ths.”
The students in class laughed that day, as did I, but I’ll never forget it. He truly saw each day as a gift. What some would over-look, and maybe even scoff at, he would celebrate and praise God for. He was grateful for every day, and he lived in enthusiastic expectation of the ones to come.
The bible speaks often about this. It commands us to be thankful and joyful, and to truly live each day for the honor and glory of the Lord.
It warns us about being slothful but it also warns us about being too caught up and distracted with the cares of this life.
It’s ironic but the lollygagger and the over-achiever actually have the same mentality. Serving God and delighting in him is just too much effort for them. The lollygagger doesn’t have the energy and the over-acheiver doesn’t have the time.
I think it’s easy to fall into either category. Life can drag you down and beat you up and it can take extreme effort just to accomplish what’s required of us. We don’t like it and we don’t look forward to it so we dawdle and we tarry and we mope. We become apathetic and slothful.
Jesus says “come follow me.” and we don’t hear him because we’re asleep or our TV is too loud, or we’re wearing our headphones to block out the world.
And then there are times when being productive becomes the idol of our lives. We don’t want to be the lollygagger, so we do everything in our power to fill our time. We live in a constant race, obssessed with doing and achieving. We block out every hour of every day. We write goals and we make plans and we constantly strive for perfection. But it’s never enough.
We become so knee deep in the cares of this life, that we can’t bend our knees to the Lord of our life.
I’ve been both the lollygagger and the over-achiever.
And neither gives real joy.
So what does the bible tell us to do?
Psalm 39:4-7 says,
“Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure.Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush around, heaping up wealth, without knowing whose it will finally be. “But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.”
The bible tells us not to distract ourselves from the transience of life, but to face it head on. Not to sit around like we have all the time in the world, and yet not to race about in vain thinking we can control all the time in the world. Our days are numbered. And a life that’s lived as a lolly-gagger, or an over-achiever, is a life thats lived in vain. God is our hope and our purpose and our life’s true end. He must be the one we live for. As scripture says…
“Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men.” -Colossians 3:23
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
-Hebrews 12:1
“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
-James 4:13-15
The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” And he said, “I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” –Luke 12:16-21
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” -Matthew 16:24-26
Our life is a mist. And I don’t want to spend it chasing after the wrong things or “building bigger barns” only to end up being a fool. I want to throw off every weight and lose my life for God, even if that means being a fool in the worlds eyes.
I don’t want to sound judgemental and I don’t want to sound preachy, I just know that for me, the weeks are passing in a blur. It seemed like only yesterday I was saying goodbye to Summer, and now as we enter into November, I realize soon I’ll be saying goodbye to Fall.
We have 61 days left of 2019, and it may seem silly to you that I’m counting down, but I don’t want to be a lolly-gagger. I don’t want to mope my way through life, with a glass half-empty kind of attitude. And I also don’t want to work myself up into a lather trying to accomplish things that won’t matter in light of eternity.
As life bustles and crowds and pushes and shoves, I gasp for a breath of air. And I can get a small breath here and there, when I fall into bed after a long, hard day, or when I eat a hot dinner made by my Mom, or get out into the woods where there’s no people and no noise. But where I breathe, truly breathe, all the way down into my lungs and out my nose, wholly and deeply and fully, is in my Gods presence. It’s when I read his word and kneel before him instead of kneel down before pressures and priorities of this world.
Time is ticking constantly, but constantly we have a choice.
Will I live for the approval of men, or God?
Will I live for selfish ambitions, or for the glory and honor of my King?
What will I treasure, the days of my life, or the God of my life, who holds my days?
Winter is on it’s way. 2020 is approaching. And we have 61 days left of this decade. Don’t waste it. Don’t you dare waste it.
“Only one life, ’twill soon be passed,
only what’s done for Christ will last.”
