YOLO!

It’s Sunday! This week has literally flown. Do you ever feel like that? Like every day is like a blur, weeks fly by, and time has a way of racing like a cheetah with its tail on fire? That’s how my life feels. And I know it’s only going to get worse as I grow older. 

That’s why I need to stop. Right now. At this very moment. Before any more time slips away, before I live any more days, or even blink. 

I need to be still. I’m young (booyah!) but that doesn’t mean my life is going to last long. I might not even finish this blog post. I might not even wake up tomorrow. Those are heavy, heavy possibilities to think about. 

I don’t want to live my life fearing death, but I also don’t want to live my life pretending it’s never going to happen. Eventually I will die, whether it’s in ten minutes or seventy years. 

YOLO. Have you ever heard that acronym thrown around? Well, if you don’t know what it means, I’ll spare you the embarrassment of asking: you only live once. 

One shot. 

One adventure. 

One life.

Just one. 

It doesn’t matter what country you come from, or who’s family you’re in, or what you believe. Heck, it doesn’t even matter how many people follow your blog! We all get the same number of lives: the one we’re living right now. 

It’s not the life you’ll have tomorrow, or the one you had yesterday. All you have is right...now. 

So what should we do with it? One of my biggest fears is wasting my life. I used to think: 

I need to get involved in as many religious things as possible, and volunteer. I need to help starving people around the world, I need make a difference, I need to rescue lives, I need to...I need to...I need...I...I...me...me...

No doubt good does come out of this approach, but recently I realized: isn’t that just another form of selfishness? Isn’t it just as selfish to do things for other people so I don’t feel guilty when I’m lying on my deathbed? I think it is very easy for people who think like that to get burnt out. They’re caught up in serving and saving the world. They have dreams and fantasies of how fulfilled they will be and how much of a difference they will make. However, they soon find out it is difficult, they get sucked dry. They lose their joy. 

So what? We live selfishly because in the end it’s no different than a life of servanthood? 

Heck no. 

I believe Jesus Christ was a real person. I believe he is God, who came down and walked around in a human body. 

I want to be like Christ. When I stop and evaluate my life, this is what I realize. It sounds so noble, so honorable, doesn’t it? No. Perhaps this desire is the most misunderstood of all. 

In this life I will be called to suffer. I think that there will be many people offended by what I say, and indignant by the hard questions I will ask. I might even lose my life because of it. 

Yet, that is a reflection of how Jesus lived. Why shouldn’t I expect anything different for my life?

But what about right now? What do I do?? Am I failing Jesus because I’m not suffering? This is my conclusion to all this: 

I need to listen to his voice. I will be still. I will rest in the peace of knowing that God is calling me, he will speak into my life...but only if I seek him with all my heart. I can’t just chill out here in my peaceful little world. He needs my whole heart. Not part of it, or most of it, but every last possible doubt, fear, anxiety, and insecurity I cling on to. 

So when he does call me (because he will. In fact, he is right now), 
I will not act out of guilt, or fear of wasting my life, I will act out of love. 
Because at the end of my life, nothing is going to matter if it wasn't done out of love for him. Nothing.

To love the Lord your God. This is his first, his greatest commandment. 

{dm}