I was asked to write one of the Advent devotionals for church for this year, under 500 words on an assigned text. Oddly enough, the assigned text hit the lessons of this past year right on the head. It was a really good exercise for me, and I wanted to share, so here you go: ------------ Twelve years ago, I was reckless and self - destructive. Twelve months ago, I had a pregnant wife, a difficult relationship with my dad, and a long list of things I’d walked away from unscathed, against all odds. Other than brain surgery in 2011, I’d never been hospitalized. I’d never broken a bone or been really ill. I joked about being invincible. As they do, things changed. In a six week period, my wife had an emergency C-section, I buried my father, held my first child and had brain surgery #2. What struck me most was how lonely it was to no longer share the world with someone who had been here since the moment I was born, how deeply the fear of losing my wife stunned me, and what it felt like to leave my infant daughter waiting for me during my own surgery. I went in afraid in ways I couldn’t even understand, because of her. The writer in Psalm 90 asks God to teach us to “number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Comparing us to a God who exists beyond time, he humbly accepts that we are not like God. We live for a time, messing up, praying for mercy, then the “years of our life” are “cut off, and we fly away.” We all know we’re going do die. The point is, we don’t live like it. We hold on to grudges and pass up opportunities. We withhold our love and friendship, our time, our resources and ourselves. We put off forgiveness and are distracted from gratitude. I’m sad I never got to put my father’s only grandchild in his arms. But not half as sad as I am that I never gave him credit for how much he really did care about me, or thank him for the good things I did learn from him. We defend our hearts. We close our minds. We act like we have all the time in the world. To look our own and one another’s mortality in the eye can change all of that. It can give us a heart of wisdom, or at least a much better perspective. Sometimes, now, I stop, remind myself I am a visitor here and just look around me, wherever I am. Invariably, everything I see is beautiful. I can’t say I am wise, but I can say the Psalmist has a point. If we all learned to number our days, so many things we put our energy into simply wouldn’t matter anymore, or at least not so much. Other people, though, would matter more, and be a lot easier to feel compassion for. After all, that person who really frustrates you is going to be cut down and fly away too. May we all learn to number our days. It would teach us to really live the lives we so fear to lose.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:10:46 +0000
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