February 8 2018 – Click here to listen
I was listening to an interview of congressman Trey Gowdy as he explained why he is not going to run for re-election. I’ve always admired him as a fair-minded voice in the midst of an ideological-driven-political-hate-storm.
He was asked by Martha MacCallum why he was leaving, and he said that he was at a point where he estimated that 2/3’s of his life had passed, and he wanted to spend the remaining 1/3 doing what he liked. He wants to spend more time with his wife and kids who are in college and his parents who are still living and working somewhere in the court system that he loves.
A book came out several years ago entitled The Second Half, and it suggests taking a similar path to those folks who are approaching the second half of their life. Many of my friends have read this book and have either changed careers or begun to make serious adjustments to their lifestyle in order to achieve what they consider to be the most important things they wish to accomplish prior to time running out.
As I examined my own life I grabbed a calculator and quickly determined what percentage, (actuarily speaking), I had already burned through in my own life.
Egad!
I was rather startled when I looked at the calculator and it coldly declared that I’d already burned through 88% of my life according to the average life expectancy. I quickly reflected about the old cliché, “There is so much to do and so little time in which to do it.”
Then I thought about Reverend Billy Graham a couple of decades ago when he fielded this question from a university student, “What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?” – He answered without hesitation “The brevity of it.”
In his autobiography, Just as I Am, he recalled the exchange with the following note:
“As I have been working on this book, many of the things I have recounted seem as if they happened only yesterday. Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over.
Then he added a poignant thought: “As Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4).
There are no guarantees of how long any of us will live to include everyone on this planet. So-o-o we must make haste in doing what needs to be done.
I met with a young man yesterday who was very young. He could in fact have been my grandson. He was establishing his own business and came to my home to seek me out for advice. He asked me about setting goals for his business. I advised him that life was much shorter than he could imagine particularly at such a young age but that he should pray and seek God’s purpose for his life. Part of my advice was to warn him about solely pursuing money as his only objective and to make pleasing God his most important goal.
In Matthew 6:34 the Bible states, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness . . . I can’t go back in time and change anything, but I can spend each new day I’m blessed with trying to focus on seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness for whatever time I have left.
At the time Billy Graham wrote this piece in his autobiography, his wife Ruth’s health was failing and she was an invalid, and he was in poor health with Parkinson Disease and other ailments and I feel sure he thought his days were surely numbered. I know his family felt that way because one thing on my bucket list has always been to meet and pray with him one on one. Founder of Chic Filet, Truett Cathy, once graciously offered to allow me to fly with his family on their private jet for a visit to see him to fulfill this goal, but Dr. Graham’s family wouldn’t allow the visit because he was in such poor health.
Billy Graham is still alive today! Interestingly in the 50’s he told reporters he doubted he would live too many more years, and then in the sixties he said the same thing. He was 88 when he wrote his autobiography and today is 92. Who knows at this rate he might outlive us all . . .
I wish I would have always followed the same advice I gave the young man. My biggest regret in life is that I wasted so much of it. If only I could go back and relive those days when my energy was high, and I was determined to build a worldly empire and instead work towards building God’s heavenly empire.
Unfortunately that is not an option; however I can live TODAY serving the Lord as best I know how, despite whatever trouble may be lurking out there today. And if I am granted a tomorrow, I will repeat my effort.
Matt 6:34
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.”