My church is going through a series called "One Month to Live". It is based off of a book by Kerry and Chris Shook. As the title suggests, it is about living your life as if you only had one month to live.
So I want to know, if you knew you had one month to live, how would your life be different? I think it's a pretty difficult question to answer. I mean, it's hard to put yourself in that situation. Most of us expect to live to about 80 or so and we like to say, "Someday, I'll go to Africa and feed hungry kids" or "Someday I'll get around to reading the entire bible." "Someday I'll forgive that person."
But I want to pose this question: What if "Someday" never comes?
As horrible as it sounds, we aren't all meant to live to be 80... some of us will die older, but some of us may die younger too... it's a reality no one likes to think about. But realistically speaking, very few people know their exact date and time of their death.
Truth be told, we are dying. Every single one of us... but that doesn't mean we can't live. Imagine that you knew you only had one month to live... That is a short amount of time to prepare for your death, but I'm sure you'd want to do those things you've been wanting to do "someday". Instead of planning for the future, you'd start to live your life one day at a time, right? I know I would.
Jesus once said, "Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has troubles of its own." Here, he tells us to live one day at a time... How many of us actually do that? Don't get me wrong... it's good to have goals... but what if we stopped putting everything off for "someday" and did everything today? I think our lives would change dramatically.
I don't believe enough people really live. We are too busy to live. We have things that need to be done... it's no wonder we get aggravated when things don't happen our way... We put so much stock in what is about to happen and we stop thinking about what is happening now. Tomorrow never comes... if we are living our lives for tomorrow, we aren't living our lives for anything, so why not start living day to day?
We aren't meant to sit back and just let life happen. We need to cause things to happen. We need to not be afraid to take risks... because without risks... life is boring.
I want to share a story about taking risks from Matthew 4:
"As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.'
At once they left their nets and followed him.
Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."
These men in this story had so much to lose. They were fishermen. They were making a living. They had families to feed. They probably had bills to pay too, but when Jesus came to them, wanting them to follow Him, they dropped everything they were doing and left everything behind to follow Him. They didn't think about their busy schedule. They just took a risk. They made a decision in that moment to follow Jesus, they left everything behind and it changed their lives.
You and I can do the same. Our busy culture is an illusion... We prepare for something that, in the whole scheme of things, doesn't even matter...
The earthquake in Haiti... how many people need desperate help there? How often do you think about that? How often do you think about the millions and millions of children who die every day from diseases that could be prevented if they would just have clean water to drink? I know I'm guilty. I have my own schedule to worry about... and too much to do... What a selfish, lame excuse...
So I challenge you to live as if you were dying in a month. Is this a call to do something easy? Definitely not. But what fun is life if it's easy? Everything good in life is worth your hard work and dedication. We don't have a lot of time on this earth... and each second that goes by is one second that you can never have back, so make it count!
Here are some things to think about if you knew you would be dying in just a few short weeks:
How would today look any different than any other day?
What would be your biggest regret?
What are 3 things you would change about your life and the way you live?
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