Love Me Today
1 John 4:7-8 – Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
For tomorrow just might be too late.
This year has brought about a lot of loss. Some of it was due to sickness and death. Some other was due to people being fired or quitting. Still others were in my life only briefly this year like those I see when I go to Peru each year.
This life is a series of hellos and goodbyes.
We don’t have a lot of time with the people in our lives. Some more than others and some less.
If you haven’t noticed, I have not posted a blog in the past almost month. It started as a bout of writer’s block but it ended as an experiment. I wanted to see what I would fill the time with. Granted, writing my blog is a small part of my week, but when the space is there, what would I fill it with?
What would God want us to fill it with?
That is an easy answer, people.
How much more time am I giving my family? How about my friends? How about the stranger or the sojourner or the widow or fatherless?
Am I spending my extra time with them?
Am I discipling others or seeking discipleship myself?
Or am I wasting the time?
Romans 12:10 – Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
What I found is that very little of my extra time was spend on the family, friends, or others.
You see, I filled a little bit of that time with extra Bible study, some extra time at with work, and then I downloaded a game and spent too much time playing that. Even on our date night, both Mimi and I spent quite a bit of our time on our phones.
When God returns, do you really think he will say, “I am really glad you spent more time reading my Word and less time putting it into practice,” or “I am so thankful that you posted that Bible verse to Facebook instead of learning how to live it out!” or “Great job on getting to level 20 on your game! I am so happy you got that down time to play that game a couple hours a day. Now excuse me, there are a bunch of people who never knew Me that I need to go deal with because you never had time.”
This is especially worrisome for me as a dad with a wife and 6 kids/step-kids. Am I truly being a husband and dad to them or, when Christ returns will He point out the wisdom that I should have been pointing out all along?
Honestly, this has been an issue for both my wife and I. We spend way too much time on other things and not enough on us. We talked a little bit this past weekend about how we are starting to feel a little disconnected from each other. I believe this has a big impact on that.
Micah 6:8 – “This is what the Lord requires of you: Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”
Now, admittedly, it would be very difficult to completely do a media fast as my job is based completely online and my primary ministry is this blog and my wife works in social media as a job and is a pretty big blogger out there in the blogosphere. And, believe me, I do not miss the irony of the fact that I am posting this online.
But that means we need to figure out creative ways to unplug and spend more time with each other and those whom God has placed in our lives.
And maybe you do as well.
During the time that the Bible was written, I would say it was actually easier to spend time in community, but I don’t believe it was. You didn’t travel far from home and you spent your entire day from dawn to dusk working to make a living and then would go home and fall asleep. The only real time was at dinner, which would be spent as a family unit. This happened up until the technological age.
So, what can we do?
We live in an age where technology is intertwined with our lives. It is difficult for us to remove it completely. I do believe that we are called to make time for those we love, much more time than we spend on those who have little to no effect on our lives.
We should love people today, not tomorrow.
My mom died this year. While we had a great relationship, the one thing I wish I had was more time with her. My neighbor is fighting cancer. I wish I had taken more time to pray with him and spend time with him one on one. That is definitely something I will be doing in the coming days. And spending time with my wife, something I have not done nearly as much as I should have done the past couple years, is something I will start making more a priority as we continue to learn to love each other more and more.
Song of Solomon 8:6-7 – “My beloved speaks and says to me: Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned.”
Oh, and Mimi Noble, I love you and look forward to showing you that over the next however many years of our lives together. Not just on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and our blogs, but together in the private moments we have alone.
I want to love you today, for tomorrow might be too late.
boyradd 