Living while you Live
Probably one of the most difficult lessons I have ever had to relearn is the discipline of living while I live. I say relearn because I find myself needing to be taught this lesson over and over again. Sounds crazy that you can forget to enjoy living while you are busy at life but it is so true. Living while you live is much like breathing while you walk, forget to do either and the trip will be a short one. Specifically living while you live is to take in the good things God has given and enjoy God Himself while you go through life. At times the deadlines, struggles, and difficulties take center stage and we forget what we have and who we are in Christ. I would love to say that this is a one time lesson and when you get it you’ll never have to deal with it again, but with life’s twists and turns we easily get disoriented and forget that God gave us life to enjoy.
Living consists of much more than respiration. It is much deeper than consciousness. Living is the discipline of drinking in and tasting the moments, it is being fully present in the relationships God has blessed you with, it is noticing and celebrating a sunrise with your husband or wife, it is watching and actually seeing your kids grow. You will find that when you replace living with life’s busyness you will have huge gaps in your memory. Why? Because you weren’t paying attention… you were busy. I call it living in the land of “ing”… DoING, EarnING, WorryING, or gettING. Very often we are so distracted with life that days, months and even years pass without our engagement.
You have forgotten to live when your Child takes his or her first steps and you’re not there to applaud. You have forgotten to live when your spouse sits alone on the back porch enjoying the breeze of spring while you hammer away on your laptop keys. You have forgotten to live when someone’s criticism of you lingers in your mind and causes you to miss a moment of time with your family. You have forgotten to live when deadlines, document feeds, deliveries, debacles all distract you from divine moments of life. Forgetting to live is like going through life with muted hearing, blurry vision, bland taste buds, color blind, and in a drug funk. You miss out on the saturation of color God is painting your life with. Worst of all is you miss the experience. Money can be made up, careers can be rebuilt, failures can be fixed, but lives cannot be relived. Live now.
September 27, 2011
3 responses to Living while you Live
How true is this. We all need to hear this one…especially me. You can never get those moments back and I want to treasure each one! I am a grandma and I don’t want to miss any of those moments either.
Great stuff! I need to hear this song several times every day. If it won’t matter for eternity, it really doesn’t matter. Busyness is not the same thing as holiness & busyness does NOT equal success! THANK YOU!!
Lol, I was just saying to Gina I can barely remember the last 5 years, it made me depressed. I can see the events, but not my childrens face. I must be more proactive in living while I live! Great post!