It is difficult to realize that you cannot win every battle for every friend. It is difficult to understand and accept your own limitations, and with them, the recognition that while you try to do the best you can, it will often prove inadequate.
- Drizzt Do’Urden
I just saw pictures that were taken at this years International Christian Retail Show and I just have one thing to say…
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP MAKING CHEESY RIP OFFS OF BRAND NAMES AND PUTTING THEM ON T-SHIRTS!
Christ was not a cheesy rip off. The market is just completely saturated with these cheesy, un-original, and just plain distasteful pieces of apparell.
So, do us all a favor, and just stop.
No matter how hard I try, I seem to be always waiting for the next big thing. The next year, next month, next week, next day, next hour, or next minute. I look back and can barely remember ever truly appreciating the moment I was living in.
It’s sad, really.
Sure, it’s trite, old news. We hear it all the time. Still, I feel like my life is just passing by and I never see it because I’m looking so far ahead.
I’ve heard this before from other adults. They say they regret not spending more time doing something. I just want to know how to do this. What does it look like. How do I live in the moment without indulging?
I just want to live and appreciate my life where I am now, at this very moment, without neglecting the future. Without obsessing about the next big thing.
I just don’t know how to do it.
Everytime I blink I’m thinking about what happens next. When you boil it down, I’m just waiting to die, and that scares me. Not the “death” part. More so the part about just “waiting” to die. It makes everything else seem unimportant.
I don’t want my death to just be a means to an end. The last bump on the road before Paradise.I want my death to be the end of a good run. The finishing touches on a life truly lived. How do I truly live when all I’m doing is thinking about whats next?
James seemed to have some understanding of this problem. I like the book of James. Such a small book, yet so rich in truth. Five chapters of pure, sensible goodness. The fifth chapter sheds a bit of light on my current thoughts:
James 4:13
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”James 4:14
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.James 4:15
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Of course, this makes even more sense when put in context with the rest of the book. He speaks of action and words being part of an inseperable pair.
I once worked for a man who, to me, was the physical embodyment of the book of James. However, I don’t think he realized it. This makes me admire him even more. What I admired the most about him though, was the fact that he rarely talked about doing things. More often than not, he would do things, and then talk about how he was going to improve them. He truly was a man of action, and the fruit of his ministry testified to that fact.
He had a vision. He acted on what he knew. He, seemingly, was able to live in a moment, appreciate it, and have a clear vision of the future without muddying up whatever moment he was in. Life happened to him, not around him.
Some people are just born with that kind of drive. The rest of us have to fight for it, tooth and nail. It’s a daily struggle just to wake up, but to wake up and act according to our words, and speak according to our actions, well, that is a war that is fought over a lifetime.
Somehow, I think that is part of being able to live in the now, with a clear vision of whats ahead. I could go into great detail but suffice to say that when you spend time concentrating on what you are doing, you tend to pay close attention to the moment. It is only natural. You can’t think about what you are doing without thinking about what you are doing.
So for now, James is my guide. He’s teaching me some pretty important lessons right now. Lessons that will certainly serve me well in my walk through life.
Hats off to you, James.
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