What Matters?

Wow…long time no blogging. My life has been pretty hectic lately, but still really good. Things have been crazy with school, work and aqueous. A couple weeks ago we had Francisco Torrez move-in on Saturday and Sunday and Welcome week on campus on Monday through Friday. Also, a couple Saturday’s ago we had Aqueous’ fall kick-off. All of this was coupled with work, school and the beginning of our H20 groups, so finding time where I can actually have some down-time has been hard to come by.

After finishing with the FT move-in three Sunday’s ago, me and a couple others drove up to Los Angeles to a Blindside show. At about 12:00 a.m. the show ended and we headed back to my car, only to find that my car was no longer there. I quickly asked some valet parkers nearby if they knew what had happened to my silver Nissan Xterra. They told me that it had been towed, and they gave me the number for the Hollywood Towing Company. After confirming with the towing company that my car was at their impound facility, me and the others jumped into a very silent taxi ride to go pick up my car. We were all extremely tired, and most of us had to be at work by 8:00 the following morning, and we knew we had a 2 hour car ride back home. I was frustrated because (1) I was really tired and just wanted to crawl into bed with my wife and go to sleep, and (2) I knew that I was now going to have to throw down $169.50 to get my car out of impound. The whole process went very quickly and we were out of there in no time at all. My fellow passengers chipped in for “gas money” and the taxi ride, which I was extremely grateful for.

During this unexpected excursion and on the Ride home I began to think. For some reason I kept repeating over and over in my spirit: “God, I am so sorry for not spending enough time with you. I promise to be with you more if you just get me out of this.” I had no idea why I was saying this; I mean, its not like I have been ignoring God on any level. About a week ago I realized what I was thinking: In one split second, God can take everything I have away. Whether it’s my car, my money, my time, my life, everything I have can be gone tomorrow. I think that I got caught up in everything that I had. I have a nice car, a nice job that pays me pretty well, a lovely wife, a nice place to live, and I forget that it can all be taken away.

Last week as I was praying, I had an epiphany: If I died right this second, I would be so pissed at my self because I would feel like I had let God down. This life has been given to me, and all the time in it, and I had squandered it. Instead of getting on my knees to pray for all of my friends who don’t know Christ, I sit in front of the television and watch MTV. While there are countless human beings dying of starvation, I go to McDonalds and stuff myself. While I can take advantage of an opportunity to serve my community, I sleep in. I wonder how many opportunities I have missed to share life with people and help advance the kingdom of God because of my laziness and selfishness. Sometimes life is hard, and you go through times where life gets really busy, but we have to look at it in perspective. What are the things that really matter? If my life is busy because I am serving my local community, sharing life with pre-disciples of Christ, and praying, then I am excited because I know that when it comes down to it, I am on this earth for a very short time, and I want to make sure that I am maximizing my time to help make a difference in the kingdom of God. When I die and I look back on the life that I had lived, I am not going to be sad that I didn’t watch more television, but I know that it will grieve me deeply if I realize that I wasted my life on the petty and the mundane, while I could have been spending more time praying, more time sharing life with others and more time seeking the heart of my Father.