In my more than seventy-five years, I find it interesting that I spent fifty years doing what I love, for the most part, yet I remember data points but not the effort it took to achieve them. I have spent over thirteen thousand days perfecting my craft, and I recall facts, but most of the emotion has been lost to time. Yet a chance meeting with a stranger decades ago remains vivid in my mind. His need outweighed my inconvenience. The emotion of that encounter is real, as if it happened yesterday. I can still see his eyes. The pain in them was deeper than anything I had experienced. Later in life, I, too, would have his eyes. I, too, would know what it is like to feel emotional pain that defies words.
The things that took up most of my time and attention seem insignificant compared with those that touch my heart.
Luxuries of Growing Older
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” – Lao-Tzu
One of the luxuries of growing older is the time to look back. As we live our lives, we seldom have time to view things in the context of our entire lives. We make decisions based on immediate needs. If we are mature enough, we even set something aside for the future, without knowing what it will bring. When you have lived three-quarters of a century, that changes.
1 Corinthians 16:13: “Stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.”
I can look back on my life and see both light and darkness. I can see how decisions played out. I now know when an act of kindness was truly kind and when it only postponed the pain. I see great jobs that turned bad and bad jobs that turned out well. The same is true for people, separating true friends from lifelong acquaintances.
All of this is to say that the moments of your life pass quickly and unnoticed until one day you count them. The things that occupied most of your time and attention seem insignificant compared with those that touch your heart. All the decisions you make about survival don’t compare with those laced with compassion. In the moment, the survival decisions seem most important, but in the end, they weren’t.
Fortunate to Live a Long Life
2 Corinthians 4:16: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
If you are fortunate enough to live to my age, your mind does not revisit days spent at work, mowing the yard, or doing the laundry. It finds those exceptional moments. The ones that changed your life or someone else’s are the ones you treasure. You do not have to be a good person to do good. Everyone has that potential. God created it in us; we need to activate it.
Galatians 5:13: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”
I want everyone reading this to fill their lives with exceptional moments that will remind them they are alive when old age creeps up. God has made us exceptional; we should live lives that reflect His effort. When the day comes that you have more days behind you than ahead of you, it will comfort you to know you mattered to someone. Maybe it was a moment, maybe a lifetime, but you mattered.
Epilogue
It is not the material things you gave them; it is your time, wisdom, and heart that changed the world around them.
Live well in the moments. Let the sound of your life echo through eternity.
Isaiah 46:4: “Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he; I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you, and I will rescue you.”
Buried but not forgotten, I was asked today to join a panel to discuss one of the most painful events of my life. The purpose is noble: to help others understand pain, survival, and the hidden struggles people carry. We go through these stages to refine ourselves and become more human in our interactions with others.
I see Paul as a role model for living. Not just because he’s passionate about sharing the gospel, but in how he lived his everyday life. It’s easy for me to depend on my past as a guide for my future. This way of thinking assumes there’s a fixed trait or unchanging characteristic in who I was that determines who I can become. It’s the old nature-versus-nurture debate. But look at Paul as an example.
Have you ever felt like your plans were crushed, only to realize they weren’t broken but simply redirected for God’s purpose? Sometimes, God uses minor setbacks to teach us. This is a story of one such experience. Traveling internationally is always challenging. It’s not just about different languages and cultures; it’s also about everyday things like water and electricity. I was telling a friend the other day that I’ve never felt more entitled than when I stepped outside my environment into someone else’s.
Did God turn to Esther to finish what Joshua and Saul left undone? I love the story of Esther. Mordecai’s exhortation to Esther, “Who knows—perhaps it was for a time like this…” is one of my favorite verses. It reminds me to act even when the outcome is uncertain, as evidenced by his other statement, “Even if you now remain silent, relief and deliverance will come from another source.” I know I can either be a part of God’s plan for another, or God will choose someone else.
The Trap of a Single Story
There is a risk in forming a narrative from a single story. But we do it all the time.
You were chosen to bear fruit that lasts. Your existence is not temporal; it is eternal. Your actions are not of someone who passes through, but of someone who is sent.
“Breaking Free: Doing That For Which You Were Created.” Have you ever felt like you might not be doing the right thing or that you’re just in the wrong place? It’s a familiar feeling, and we find ourselves in such situations for many reasons. Ideally, passion drives us—we discover what we love, pursue it, and thrive in it. But for many, that’s the exception rather than the rule.