Are You Paying Attention?

“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty…they are soon gone, and we fly away…so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom” Psalm 90:10, 12.

Pause and take an account of your life.  The Psalmist instructs a man to be wise and know, though his years may be seventy or even eighty, they will pass quickly and he will be gone.  But what if your years are only 22? 

With the passing of a friend and former classmate Curtis Feldpausch, the Lord has caught our attention.  I won’t claim to be close friends with Curtis, but this was someone I had hosted as a visitor when he was looking into attending NTBI.  This was someone I had given up way too many 3-pointers to and painted all over a friend’s car on their wedding day with, so learning of his sudden death came as a shock.  It’s the kind of thing that happens so suddenly, that comes out of nowhere and seems to blindside you.  And while extremely tragic, I think the Lord and Curtis would be pleased to have his passing cause many of us pause and reflect before our Father on our lives and ask ourselves what James asks in 4:14, “What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

As we head back to Missouri to continue our missionary training we have been pondering what kind of posture and attitude we want to engage our lives with.  We took a class on “Stewardship” right before we left for break, which began to challenge us to think about how we use our time and resources.  If every day is a gift and we have no promise of tomorrow, how should we approach our days and our interactions with others?  We have been challenged as we reflect on the love of God the Father and that expressed in the life of Christ.  In everything that God did, he did in love and he gave.  God so loved the world that he gave (Jn. 3:16).  He gives living water (Jn. 4).  Christ is the bread of life given by God to give eternal life to those who believe (Jn. 6).  Paul remarks that he lives his life by faith in Christ who loved him and gave Himself for him (Gal. 2:20). 

If we only have today, we want to be people who love and who give.  As we have pondered the frailty of life we’ve had to ask ourselves “What if we died tomorrow?  What kind of lives did we live?  Did we hold back or were we walking before the Lord as if every day could be our last and desired to make it count?  So please be praying for a shift in our thinking and for the Lord to continue to impress these truths on our hearts.  We want to be more giving and share with others our lives, money, time, house and love, but out of a heart of gratitude and overflowing thanksgiving, not a heart of performing to meet a certain list of requirements.  We just want God to love through us and shape us into children of His who let go and are willing to give.  We have some goals that we have set up for this next semester to pursue but in the interest of being conformed to the image Christ we want what is at the very heart of God and that is love.  Thanks Lord for getting our attention because boy do we ever need it, and thanks for doing it graciously.  Hope He has your attention as well.