In a small, dust-laiden cabinet lining the wall of a home in rural Thailand, I have discovered a treasure. Apparently I am late in my discovery, but like any archeologist, I am elated with my ancient finding.
The past two days in any amount of free time I could muster, I have been poring over Tuesdays with Morrie. If, like me, this book is new to you, here’s a synopsis: A professor who is dying gives one final lesson to a former student. That summary is so lacking. The book is beautiful. I love people. I love stories. I love people’s stories. If you feel the same, read this! Pronto!
While there are parts of Morrie’s views I do not agree with, the way in which he loved and lived and the values he held to are indisputable! He had such grace and insight in his last days. This blog was inspired by some passages I read from Mitch Albom’s final interviews with his beloved professor.
“We’re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own.”
“Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they wanted to tell you about it. ‘Guess what I got? Guess what I got ?’ You know how I always interpreted that? These people were so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.”
“You know what really gives you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give.”
“Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
Such depth of wisdom and insight from one who spent his final days not in self-pity (though he was dying slowly and painfully from ALS), but exulting in the small beauties of life. This message seems to be coming at me from every angle lately.
I’m reading it in Don’t Waste Your Life.
Brooke Fraser is singing it into my spirit in her song “Hosea’s Wife: “There’s a question like a shame no one will show // what do I live for?”
I see it in the eyes of the beautiful Thai children I get to play with every day for the remainder of this month.
Consider the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. “Again the Kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone…” He gives different amounts to each servant and each does different things with what the master gave to them. When the master returns and sees that the servant with one bag of silver had only protected what was given to him out of fear of taking a risk and investing it, he replies, “You wicked and lazy servant!”
Our lives are these proverbial bags of silver. The joy we have in Christ. The fulfillment. The sense of purpose. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-Control. These are the evidences of someone filled with the Holy Spirit. We are given a seed that we are then to sow. We are to take this gift he has entrusted to us and spend it all on Him! We are to risk it that he may gain a return from it! Merely protecting what we have is not enough!
So what do we live for? We live that HE made be made much of! Through us. Through this life. Our culture would have us think that material things bring happiness. But truly, they only lead to emptiness. Since Scripture says that Christ called us to have life “and life abundantly”, shouldn’t Christians be the most fulfilled people on the planet? A people holding so loosely to what they have because they know it was never theirs to begin with.
We should be giving of ourselves constantly and if Christ is at the root, we’ll never run dry! Paul referred to it as “being poured out as a drink offering” and as we pour out, He just keeps filling us up. The Christian life is about investing in eternal things. In loving people. “Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” This famous excerpt from 1 Corinthians 13 is read at just about every wedding in the world, but do we believe it? Do we live it? Love is what it’s about. What it’s always been about.
“God IS love, and all that live in love live in God. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect” (1 John 4:16-17)
The easiest way to waste your life is to protect what you’ve been given. Never share it with anyone. If you are a believer, only go to church and be fed. Never do anything with the knowledge but grow arrogant in all you’ve learned. Believe the lie that you have nothing to offer and that you are insignificant and you will be! Complain that God has only given you one piece of silver, while giving your neighbor with 10 pieces.
OR be absolutely BLOWN AWAY at the free gift he’s given you and go out and risk it all! Invest it
everywhere you can. Tirelessly seek opportunity to share it with others so that the master gets a return of souls! Love others. Love with HIS love. And when you come to the end of your life, whether you have years to make peace like Morrie did, or if you are taken in an instant, your life will not be wasted. The seeds you planted will be springing up all around even as your own shoot withers. “All of creation will be shaken and removed , so that only unshakable things will remain…we are receiving a kingdom that is unshakable…” (Hebrews 12:27-28) Sow unshakable seeds. Plant Kingdom love and see Kingdom return. Bring the “fruitfulness of the kingdom to the bareness of the earth” (Michael Hindes).
To my own dear family, I am so thankful for you. For the spiritual and emotional investment you have planted in me. For the unconditional love you sometimes have to leave to appreciate fully. For the first time in my World Race experience so far, tears are flooding my eyes. I am SO blessed! Thank you for seeing Him in me and sending me out. I will not waste this time. I will not return the same. I will not waste my life. I pray the same for each of you. I shouldn’t be the only one lucky enough to enriched by all you have to offer.
