Sunday, October 3, 2010

The urgent long view

My current conundrum is that we don't know how many days on earth we get. I was remembering my friend Brian this morning. He has no more days; I have no more days with him. I still find that deeply saddening.

If I knew I had only 30 more days in my life, I would feel a deep sense of urgency to call some of my best friends and tell them, "I have 30 more days and beyond that my hope is in Jesus Christ, beyond that I believe I will experience beauty and majesty that we only get a taste of in this life, beyond that I will be in eternity with God. You too can experience hope, beauty, and majesty in this life and the next because of who Jesus is and what he has done."

But I don't know that. I may well have 30 + 30 years left in my life. And how sweet would be it be to have all those years with these friends and new friends? When I take the long view, I feel I mustn't force my hand, mustn't try and run ahead, mustn't try and rush things. Instead, I should live and enjoy each moment for what it is. Not rushing relationships to me means being a normal friend, not being a weird religious freak who is acquainted with someone. But that means that it might be year 8 in a relationship before someone says, "Will you pray for me and my family;" something that happened just last week. Year 8! In the urgent world, who has time for year 8? But in light of eternity, what is 8 years? Nothing.

In any event, I feel kind of stuck. So there it is, the problem of the urgent long view.

1 comment:

Stephanie said...

Andrea, this is what we all struggle with! I would urge you to pray for sensitivity to when God is urging you in your relationships. And until then, be a friend like Christ would have been.