This year, instead of making a long list of resolutions that I would probably give up on by February...I decided to simply make a little list of life-altering things that I too easily forget. I want to live this year in light of these simple truths.
1. Life is short.
I could die this year, so I want to remember to live each day with this in mind.
Like Jonathan Edwards put it, "Resolved, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life."
James 4:13-15 - "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'"
Frederick Buechner writes, "Intellectually we all know that we will die, be we do not really know it int he sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. WE do not really know it in the sense of living as thought it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever."
thanks for the reminder, lauren. that's something i forget all too often too... i think if we were to live every day knowing it could be our last -- we would be different people. the kind of people Jesus calls us to be.
ReplyDeleteThat's something I continually forget...that life is short. Thanks for the reminder that I need to live that way. :)
ReplyDeleteExcellent first thing. It's also on the top of my list, yet something so easy to forget.
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