If you were diagnosed with terminal cancer, and were given three weeks to live, what would you do?
Skydiving. Climb Everest. Travel the world. Kiss the girl you always wanted to. Spend it with the ones who mean the most to you. You can fill in the blank.
We’ve all thought about this scenario and how we’d choose to live our life if we had a time stamp on it. Spoiler alert: we all have a time stamp. Unless you’re from the planet Krypton or have traveled back in time through some wormhole, we’re all going to experience death.
So why would you choose to live differently today? What about you wasn’t living today to the fullest in the first place?
Learn from Patrick Winfield’s daily devotional as he gets you thinking about today, so that you can be ready for tomorrow.
The importance of today.
I’m finding that in these current times we live in, we totally overlook today, in order to get to tomorrow.
Let’s look at Matthew 6:32-34 today, which says, “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, for your heavenly father knows that you need all these things, but seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
You know what pops into my head when I think about this topic? The movie that comes to mind for me is Click. Remember that movie with Adam Sandler? I remember watching that movie about 10 years ago, and saying to myself, “Wow, do we really act like that?”
We’re so busy trying to get to that day of success, that we totally miss out on those moments when our kids are riding a bike, or the dog is doing something stupid, or…
Fill in the blank. We miss everything because we’re so busy trying to be successful. Do I want to live like that? This feeling just came up when I was watching the movie, and I thought…
This is a reminder, how important today is.
Just today.
A relationship with the people who love you.
I’ve had to bury more people than I care to remember. The pain of it has caused me to look at today differently. There were some that were younger than me, some my son’s age.
I remember the conversations that I had with each and every one of them. I questioned to myself, if I would have appreciated that moment a little bit more, and appreciated them a little bit more, how much more would I have taken full advantage of today? Every conversation for me is purposeful. Every person that I’ve met today is purposeful to me.
I was supposed to be in somebody’s life, intersecting with their life today, and they were supposed to be intersecting with my life today. For what reason? That’s what I’m looking for, that’s what I’m trying to be aware of. I am trying to recognize this at the moment, because I may not get the opportunity tomorrow.
So, if my sons come in and say, “Dad, guess what?!” I don’t care if I’m in the midst of the most awesome revelation I’m about to get from the Lord, I’ll interrupt it, because my son said, “Dad.”
I don’t know how many more of those I’ll get.
None of us do.
Life is too short. The greatest thing you can ever have is a relationship with the people who love you. Not necessarily with the job, or whatever it may be, but it’s about the relationship with the people that make it worth it.
The Challenge
Here’s a challenge I have for you. Right now, I want you to look at the last person that texted or called you. Maybe you didn’t want to talk to them. Maybe you didn’t want to respond to that text today.
How do you know that they’re going to be around tomorrow?
You owe it to yourself to just respond and see what it’s all about. You owe it to yourself to see whether or not there is some kind of purpose for the text and the call that’s deeper than what either of you think it is.
Maybe it’s more about you encouraging them with exactly what we’re talking about – taking full advantage of today. In doing so, you would have taken full advantage of today too. See how it works?
If you impacted somebody’s life, I guarantee you would have participated in what the kingdom of God is fully about.
Prayer
Father, thank you for today.
For this moment. This hour. This minute. These seconds.
They’re so important, because what you speak to our hearts right now, could reverberate throughout our entire lives. I pray that my brothers and sisters would take full advantage of today, while it is still today. I pray that they would see the importance of today and that they would live fully today.
In Jesus name, amen.
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