The Time Is Now

I've been thinking a lot about time in the past few weeks.  I went up to Tulsa to visit my dad on Father's Day.  It was the last time I ever saw him.  One month later, he passed away.

Any opportunity to tell him anything or do anything with him has passed.  So I've been thinking more and more in the days since about how I spend my time and how little of it there is.

James 4:14 says "What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while then vanishes."

I think about my kids, who it seems like were just born, but my oldest is months away from becoming a teenager.

So I began to reevaluate how I spend my time.  I decided that it was more important for me to spend time with my kids than to watch television.  In a few years, when Conner doesn't want to hang out with me, I probably won't remember or care what happened on the new season of Arrested Development, but I will long for the days when we played croquet in the backyard or played the board game "Life."

The time is now.

Spend times with the ones you love.  Make memories.  Leave nothing unsaid.  In 10 years you won't care who won this seasons' Dancing With The Stars or whether or not the Thunder beat the Pistons in some random February basketball game.  You can't have that time back and it goes faster than we realize.

The time is now.

It's easy in our busy society to let the opportunity to do meaningful things slip by.  You never hear anyone at the end of their life say, "I wish I'd checked Facebook more" or "I wish I'd seen all the Transformers movies."  Instead people either remember the meaningful events or regret the missed ones.

I think about the Wood family and the Harmon family who bring their kids weekly to Shared Blessings to pack food for hungry kids or sort clothes for those who need them.  Not only are they spending time together as a family, but they are serving their community.  They are using the limited time they have to do something important.   In doing so, they are using the limited time that their kids are young and impressionable to teach them about serving and compassion.  And they seem to have a blast while doing it.

I think about the Richards' family where 3 generations of them went on a missions trip to Honduras to serve those who are less fortunate.  They could have spent that money going to Disneyland or Branson, but they chose to not only spend time together, but serving in a 3rd World country.

Our time is limited and goes in the blink of an eye.  I've never heard anyone regret going on mission trip, serving in a soup kitchen, working on a Habitat for Humanity house, or serving at Vacation Bible School.  That's why the time is now to look for opportunities to make this planet a better place in the short time that we have on it.  Serve in your church.  Work in a community ministry.  Go somewhere and do something meaningful.

The time is now to be with the ones you love.  The time is now to say anything that needs to be said.  The time is now to look for meaningful opportunities to positively impact your community and your world.  If our life is a mist that is here for a while and then quickly vanishes, we need to choose wisely what we do with that "little while."