One day you are holding your bundle of joy in a hospital room, the next you are celebrating a birthday, graduation, or wedding.
And in those moments when you take the brief opportunity to pause you wonder, “where did the time go?”
The one fleeting thing is this life is time. You can do many things to gain more of what’s
valuable. You can work harder, dedicate
yourself, and sacrifice more. But the
one thing you can’t get more of is time.
It’s limited. It’s
finite. You have it … and then you don’t.
The struggle is trying to make sure you don’t miss the
important moments. Because once they’re
gone, you can never get them back.
I came across Psalm 90:12 a few months ago, and it’s a
scripture that has stuck with me and has become a sort of mantra for our
family.
“Teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a
heart of wisdom.” (NASB)
“Teach us to number our days” … what a wise request. This is prayer that we all could get behind
and make part of our daily and weekly prayers.
God teach us to make each day count.
God teach us to number our days.
As I have thought more about this verse I’ve been convicted
of how much of life I miss – of how many days I’ve forgotten to number and now
they are lost … frozen in time. I am
unable to get them back, and so I am motivated to make each day I have with my family,
with my ministry, in this life count.
Here are some ideas to help you if you are struggling to
number your days:
1.
Commit to
Reminders
It’s hard for me to remember
everything that I want to. Even in my
work life I ask people to e-mail or text me so that I don’t forget. I have lists upon lists on my desk. I even use two whiteboards to keep track of
all of the plates that I have to spin.
These tools serve as reminders for me at work so why not develop and
commit to tools to help me remember more important things.
I’m a very visual person – so our
reminders are marbles. I have a couple
of jars of marbles that are very important to me. The two I have at home represent both of my
boys. In each jar is the same number of
marbles as there are weeks until their next birthday. Each week I take one marble out from each jar
to remind myself to number my days. I
carry these marbles in my pocket all week.
Every time I reach in my pocket for my keys, for cash, for a pen … I
also touch those marbles and it reminds me of the most important part of my
day.
Your reminder doesn’t have to be
marbles. It could be a strategically
placed note. It could be photos it key
places. Whatever it is, I encourage you
to find a good reminder for you, and commit to it. Allow that reminder to be a trigger point for
you to number your days.
2.
Make Work
Wait.
All too often I find myself asking
my family to wait because of work. I
convince myself that I’m needed and the deadlines are important and that in the
end it’s for them anyways. But the truth
is sometimes work just needs to wait. The clients will be there in the
morning. The paperwork won’t mind
waiting until the next day. If you want
to be a person who is wise and who numbers their days, then somewhere you need
to draw a boundary and say to work – “Sorry, you are just going to have to
wait.”
3.
Become a Hands Free Home
Technology is an important part
of our culture. And technology is
awesome. Cars that drive themselves,
paying for things with your cell phone, and Taco Bell delivery … let’s be
honest technology is pretty impressive.
But there is a dark side to all of this technology and I think most of
us are at least aware of it.
While we think we are using
technology to connect with the world in better ways – what we are really doing
is disconnecting from the people that matter the most to us. While we can see what our high school and
college buddies had for dinner we forget that our children are sitting across
from us at the dinner table waiting for us to be with them.
It seems in an effort to always
be connected we always have something in our hands. I want to challenge you to make your home a “Hands
Free Home”. When you come home set down
the phone, iPad, computer and remote. Find
a basket and have everyone put their phones in it until your time as a family
is done for the evening. Take away the
distractions and allow your family to enjoy each moment.
4.
Appreciate the Beauty of a Moment
Each moment is beautiful, even
the mundane moments. We forget this
truth that there is beauty in each and every moment. We let our mind wander to other things,
responsibilities, projects, desires and in the process miss what is happening
right in front of us.
Here’s an example: I love football. Every little nuance about it is interesting
to me from blocking, to play calling to coverages. I can watch every second of every game on the
weekend and just be totally content. The
other day I was watching football, totally engrossed in it when my
three-year-old started asking me questions.
“Are those the Chiefs?” “Are they talking about the Quarterback?” “Who are the red ones?” “Why are they wrestling?” “What are they trying to do?”
If you have ever been around a
three-year-old then you understand how these rapid fire questions come at you
and you feel like there is no end. And
you feel like every answer you give leads to another dreaded question …. “Why?”.
And while my son was hammering me with question after question, I started to
get a little flustered. But then I saw
the beauty of the moment.
All I wanted to do was watch football. But then I realized he was getting into
it. He was remembering things we talked
about weeks ago. He wanted to know who
to cheer for and who to cheer against.
He wanted to be like daddy and spend time doing what daddy wanted to
do. It was a beautiful moment, maybe the
best moment of my weekend. And I’m so
glad I didn’t miss it.
Make sure you are capturing the
beauty of each moment … you only get a handful of them. You never know if you will ever get the same
chance again.
I’m so glad that as a family we have started to number our
days. It’s not an easy thing to do, but
I believe it’s totally worth doing. I
feel like we have a new appreciation for life and all of the things that God
has blessed us with. And so I know that
I’m going to commit to having marbles in my pockets, making work wait, being a
hands free home, and trying to appreciate the beauty of every moment. It’s my prayer that you will be able to do
the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment