Time

Birthdays always seem to get a person thinking about their lives and how they’ve been spending their time. For us as believers it poses a perfect time for us to reflect on our lives in the last year and point to God’s faithfulness in that time. Such was the case for me this week.

I am no longer 23. I have officially entered my mid-twenties. On Thursday, I was thinking how I spent my 23rd birthday. I was in the dumps a bit actually. A girl I had been dating and I broke up the week before and so went my plans for my birthday. The big highlight ended up being going out with some of my guy friends to ESPN Zone to watch the Dodgers game and I actually think they lost. That was the day that started my year as a 23 year old; the year that definitely saw the most change in my life. I moved from Costa Mesa to Moshi to Long Beach back to Moshi and here I am.

That same woman, who I remain close friends with, emailed me this week and asked me for my thoughts on that season in our lives. I enjoyed thinking back, but now it all seems so odd and distant. Well, okay, that was my last year in Costa Mesa, I struggled with feelings towards this person and I was working this job and I was going to this church, my final year rooming with Josh and Cody. Yeah, that was a good time in my life, but its gone and things will never be like that again. Do I wish some things of that season were still a part of my current life? Totally! I’ve never had roommates that I laughed with and grew with like Josh and Cody. I’d love to have that again. I’d love to have many parts of my past to be parts of my present.

You know what I remember about that time? Alta. With Clesi, with Ash, with whoever. I remember the sights and smells of preaching and doing evangelism at Newport Pier. I remember getting calloused fingers for the first time while learning to play guitar. I remember songs from worship times with my life group. That’s where I was when I turned 23. Isn’t it funny how all these different aspects of our physical lives are linked together? Like a certain song brings you back to such and such time or reminds you of this person. Blue Fruitopia (do they still make that?) is forever linked to my freshman year of high school and I get sad with any similar smell because that was a lonely time for me. Amos Lee’s self-titled album is linked to my internship in Moshi, it brings back memories of my roommates and the excitement of getting hired at TOA, whereas Matthew Mayfield makes me somber as I found his music during a very hard and sad time in my life. The Lord constructed us to remember things and remember His faithfulness in every season of our lives.

In all our reflection, we should be sure to evaluate our effectiveness for the Kingdom and take note of what God was doing in that time. God’s movement of course can look so different from person to person, same with the advancement of His Kingdom. Maybe the last year His Kingdom and His Spirit was expanding in your life personally and this next year will see the fruit affecting the lives of the people around you. Or maybe, the Lord spent the last year radically using you and changing you and the Kingdom grew because He chose you. Or maybe, you spent the last year sitting on your hands, trying to see if you could get the coolest new gadget, that significant other you‘ve been longing for, or any other arbitrary thing that pulled you away from what the Lord was trying to do.

I am 24. Our lives are short. Its funny how we always want to think about the future and how we hope things will be. Typically that goes about five years in the future, we’d like to be there because then we’ll have our spouse, our own house, our family, our own business, our whatever. We don’t like to look to the future that is fifty years from now. The truth is that those things you plan on having in five years may be further than you expect and that fifty years is coming quicker than any of us realize. In fifty years, I may very well be dead. It wouldn’t even have to be anything particularly tragic or odd. I’d be in my seventies, people just die in their seventies. If I am just an average man, I’ve essentially lived a third of my life and yet in so many ways, I feel as though my life has just started.

How morbid of me, the Lord has given me another year completed in my life and I’m talking about death. I’m not trying to be morbid or foreboding, but it is biblical to realize that our time on this earth is fleeting, a mere vapor in the wind (James 4:14). So how are we spending our time? Are we capturing every moment for the glory of God or are we just trying to keep our heads afloat? Are we intentionally seeking to enjoy our time in accordance with His spiritual fruit of joy and peacefulness? Or are we constantly longing, even lusting, after whatever thing we think will satisfy, therein driving us to the point of misery? When your life is said and done will people be able to tell that you existed? If so is it because you made a positive impact or is it because you became an infamous waste of God’s creation?

Our tendency is often to look to mediocrity. I don’t have to be like Mother Theresa, so long as I don’t become like Hitler. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a bit of an idealist, but I would hope that more people would strive to reach levels of goodness and worth-living life that would reflect that of a saint like Mother Theresa. But rather than trying to be like her, lets try to be like the Guy that was her inspiration and walk in the same Spirit that empowered her. Let’s live our lives in front of God and only look for His satisfaction in us. Mother Theresa did that. I feel like much of the world missed out on her passing because it was overshadowed by the wasteful death of Princess Diana around the same time. But that wouldn’t matter to Momma T for one second, because she didn’t spend her time thinking about publicity or what people thought and noticed about her. She lived her life and spent her time with her eyes on her Creator and the life to come.

I don’t want to waste my time on earth. I don’t want to get old and look back and see a garage full of cars and realize its all vanity. I don’t want to wait for tomorrow to be great in God’s sight, because tomorrow might not even come. I don’t know how much time I have on this earth, but I know that whatever time He gives me, that time is important and I should use it wisely. I realize this is only a vapor in the light of eternity. I realize that “the Christians who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next” (C.S. Lewis) I thank the Lord for the last 24 years. I pray that He is glorified in me today and that I can focus on Him and Heaven so that I don’t waste the moments He gives me.

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The Rundown: My birthday was very blessed and memorable. I started off the day at devotion and Jodie prompted people to do affirmations for me and I was affirmed by Eli, a few of our workers and one of our kids Irene, then everyone prayed for me. My parents gave me some money and after an ordeal for a few days, I was able to download a really sweet editor that I will be using to get quality videos of me and the kids out to all of you. Lyd and Jodie took me out for lunch which was nice. We also celebrated altogether at TOA where we ate cookies the older boys had made the night before and Mary prayed a blessing over me. I had a good time of English Bible teaching with the Form One students. And that night I had dinner at the Helblings and Lauren made a cake for us to enjoy after worship. A very blessed day overall. The only other two things would be that Friday, I played pickup soccer for the first time with a bunch of Tanzanians and that was fun. Playing with Tanzanians is similar to playing with Mexicans, which is what I’m used to. Its like they’re good, but its not like they’re necessarily better than me and I just have to get used to speaking in a language other than English. Tanzanians don’t celebrate as much though, I will say that. I scored my team’s only goal. I will be preaching at Pastor Unity’s on Sunday and will be bringing Innocent and Awadhi with me which will be great. I’ve preached there before and I really love Pastor and his wife Grace, who is like my right hand at TOA. That’s it!

Wow, I think my blogs keep getting longer and longer…