What Are You Living For?

The Holy Spirit was on me early yesterday morning, asking me a hard question: What are you living for?

Yall. I’m not going to lie. This is and was a hard question for me. Mostly because I automatically reflected back to Wednesday (the day before).

Wednesday was hard. Honestly, this entire week has been hard. We started back to work Monday and I can tell you, very little about a dental office will ever be the same. I can assure you, it may look similar to you and it may smell similar to you, but things have changed.

So on Wednesday, as-soon-as I got off from work, I rushed to the grocery store. And then I rushed home. And I rushed to cook dinner. And I rushed to clean. And I was so “rushed out” by the time I saw Ava and Jason that I had nothing left to give them.

It was a complete failure on my end. I was rushing so much to get to the good, that when it arrived, I was depleted.

And so this is why the question was so hard for me yesterday morning. Because I rushed away a day, and moments, that I can never get back. As a result I felt empty, sad, and depleted. And I simply cannot afford to do that anymore.

What are we living for? We rush towards the weekend. We rush towards prom. We rush towards graduation. We rush towards promotion. We rush towards milestones. We rush pregnancy. We rush crawling toddlers. We rush adolescence. We rush towards vacations. We rush relationships. We rush moments we wish we could have back. We rush. Everything is rushed. 

And while I was thinking about this question the Holy Spirit proposed to me, I crossed paths with a kind, older man.  The conversation I had with him will be one I remember probably for my entire life as it was very sobering and very sad. This man, who is in his 60’s/70's, is getting ready to marry off his youngest daughter. He told me that his daughter was having an officiant and not a clergy person, preside over the ceremony. 

He then proceeded to say: These are my two biggest failures as a parent. 

He stated that the first greatest failure as a parent was that he didn't raise his children to be religious. 

Side note, yall, that's part of the issue. Jesus isn't about religion, He is about relationship. The Pharisees were religious. Religion will leave you empty handed. Relationship with Jesus leads you to the Kingdom. 

This man then proceeded to tell me that his children never had time for religion now and that part of the problem was that he didn’t raise them to make it a priority.

After encouraging him to pray for his children, we moved on. And then to lighten the mood (joking), I asked him what his second greatest failure was, as a parent. Yes. I did ask him that. Should I have asked, probably not? But I was curious.

When I asked him about his second greatest failure, he turned to me and said “honestly, I cannot remember now.”

He was depleted. I knew it when he said “honestly, I cannot remember now,” because the words he spoke, and the sadness in his voice, sounded the same as how I felt, when I realized what I had done. I had rushed it and so had he. He had rushed past things and parts of his life, he wish he had made time for and prioritized differently. Things that ended up having a huge impact on the people he loves the most. Things that shaped his children and his very own life. In a race to live his life, he has rushed right on past the earthly things that make an eternal difference.

What are we making time for? What are we rushing for? What are we living for? If it's not for Jesus. If it's not for the Kingdom. If it's not with eternity in mind, it's wasted time, wasted rushing, wasted energy. 

Rushing has been one of my greatest failures as a parent this week.

Rushing is a thief. A thief of time. A thief of joy. A thief of eternity. Don't let the rushing of this life rob you of the most important things. Don't let it rob you of the precious moments. Don't let it rob you seconds you have. Don't rush toward a day, a moment, or even an event that is not promised. Live for the moment the Lord has given you now, with eternity in mind.

James 4 New International Version (NIV)

4 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.15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”