Gazing on Eternity... Glancing at the Here and Now

"Don't fear death, fear the un-lived life."
- Natalie Babbitt

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for

words left unsaid and deeds left undone."

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"If you ask people what they've always wanted to do,

most people haven't done it. That breaks my heart."

- Angelina Jolie

"Our biggest regrets are nor for the things we have done

but for the things we haven't done."

- Chad Michael Murray

Meetings. Words. Professionally, I serve as part of a team of gifted individuals who strive to communicate truth via various mediums - speech, music, print, media. Practically, I find myself in a lot of meetings. Sometimes I am speaking... words. Sometimes I am listening... more words.

Occasionally, words capture my attention and my heart more than at other times. Sometimes the words resonate with me in a deep and meaningful way. I heard such words recently, and I haven't stopped thinking about them.

It was a Tuesday. We were in... of course... a meeting. I don't remember what we were discussing that prompted the words (an indication that the words had become noise to me). But then, I heard words that went something like this: "Most of you know that I lost my first wife to ovarian cancer. We often talked about things we were going to do... places we were going to visit... experiences we were going to share. And then she was gone. And we never did any of those things."

Attention captured. For a moment. And then I began to ponder...

A lot changed for our family when cancer invaded our lives. We found ourselves on the front lines of the conflict between faith and fear. We learned to cling to one another with a new degree of passion. We committed to walk our journey in such a way that it would be said of us - as the Apostle Paul said of his own life experience - "what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel." (Philippians 1:12) We acknowledged that we wanted our lives to be a living testimony of God's faithfulness and provision.

And we recognized that we wanted, to some measure, to live life in the here and now. It really is true: We have no assurance of tomorrow - and few things remind us of this more convincingly than the word "cancer".

In De Brevitate Vitae (translated On the Shortness of Life), Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger offered a line of reasoning that contributed to my thought on trying to achieve a balance in life that is characterized by a duality of sorts. "Duality" is defined as "an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something." Oh, we want to live with an eternal perspective. Our own eternities are secure because of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Grace offered and received... sin forgiven... entrance to heaven assured... because we have embraced at the deepest faith place an acceptance of the truth that "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, NIV) And we are leveraging our lives for the benefit of God's Kingdom, knowing full well that we have discovered a treasure in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that should be shared with others. We are committed to thanking, praising, and worshipping the One who has lavished His love on us - and we are committed to leading others to recognize the worth of doing the same. This is who we are, first and foremost.

But when I consider the musings of Seneca, I realize that our eternal perspective should perhaps be balanced - at least to some degree - with "the here and now." Hence a pursuit of a healthy, spiritual duality. Consider these thoughts from the Roman philosopher:

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if were all well invested... So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied, but wasteful of it... Life if long if you know how to use it.

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.

You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!

Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who … organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day… Nothing can be taken from this life, and you can only add to it as if giving to a man who is already full and satisfied food which he does not want but can hold. So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long. For suppose you should think that a man had had a long voyage who had been caught in a raging storm as he left harbor, and carried hither and thither and driven round and round in a circle by the rage of opposing winds? He did not have a long voyage, just a long tossing about.

Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.

Oh, I'm sure some will say this "duality" comes awfully close to something the Bible calls being"double-minded" (James 1:8). Jesus Himself said no one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). So healthy conversation might indeed be in order. Regarding the writing of James - the double-minded man is a doubting person. I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep me secure until He comes again or calls me home (2 Timothy 1:12). No doubt here. Regarding two masters - there is no question for us as to which side of the duality conversation is preeminent and which side takes priority. We run our race hard and fast in service of our King. Yes, we do. But if God blessed me with a precious family, can there be - no, SHOULD there be - time set aside in a balanced manner to nurture meaningful relationship with them? I think the answer is a resounding YES! If God created something as beautiful as the Grand Canyon... something as awe-inspiring as Pikes Peak... something so unique as a giraffe or a hippopotamus... should we not take time to gaze on the handiwork of the Divine and marvel at who He is? Should I not find equally awe-inspiring beauty as I take time - real, meaningful, set-aside, life-in-balance time - to gaze into the eyes of my wife and give thanks for the gift from God she is to me?

I want to learn many more deep lessons from the pages of scripture. I do. I also want to learn meaningful life lessons from those who have gone before me... who have said things like, 'We often talked about things we were going to do... places we were going to visit... experiences we were going to share. And then she was gone." I am determined that I will not have to say, "We never did any of those things."

Such are the thoughts of one who was challenged by the experience of a friend.

Healthy conversation might indeed be in order.

God, grant me the wisdom to figure it out as I continue this journey down the road less traveled...