As my son walked across the platform and officially graduated from college this past weekend, it brought back a flood of memories and emotions.
- Where did the time go?
- How could my little boy already be a grown man?
- Life is so short and life’s most important things so few.
As I sat there, my mind kept going back to this simple thought—Life is too short to waste it on things that don’t really matter.
Here are a few things that came to mind that I don’t want to be guilty of wasting my life on.
The Past…
Someone said it well “No sinner is without a future and no saint is without a past.” Thankfully, through Jesus, I can live every day focusing on the promises and potential of the future rather than the frivolities and failures of the past. As a Christian, I am not bound to live under the weight of regret, bitterness, or pain from my past.
What other people think of me…
I’m a recovering people-pleaser. I recently heard someone I respect say this and it resonated with me… “Everyone cares about what other people think. Make the decision about who you hand that power to. I give that power to the people closest to me… I’ve put all my eggs into the basket of the people who love me and no eggs at all into the countless baskets of people I don’t know.” In an attention-seeking world, there’s a lot of truth to unpack there.
I also remember one of my former pastors saying “You’d care a whole lot less about what other people think of you if you realized how seldom they actually do.”
Lesser things…
There are only so many things in life that a person can effectively prioritize. Two things I hope to keep at the top of my list are my relationships with God and my family. Everything else is secondary. Yet I still find myself regularly being pulled in other directions. May I daily fight against good things that keep me from the best things.
“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.”
I hope that you have a great week. Go out and make the most of the one life you’ve been given. And don’t forget that one of the best places to start is at home.
