I'm Dying...So I'm Going To Live!

This past Friday night, we had our annual Neiman Marcus year-beginning party.  As part of the evening entertainment, we were given a chance to take part in group karaoke.  Since there weren’t a lot of groups participating, I decided to add my name to the list of volunteer entertainers.

Now, I’m not a singer, but when it comes to being involved in entertaining, I like to do my best to make people laugh.  On this night, I thought I’d try my hand at Karaoke and not make an idiot of myself in front of all the people of Neiman’s…this included some of the VP’s and Directors.  I’m not sure if I succeeded in preventing becoming an idiot, but I sure had a good time.  It was fun to watch, but nerve wrenching to do.

The song I chose to sing was Tim McGraw’s, Live Like You Were Dying.  I’m not sure of the coincidence, but the other day I posted on Facebook, “Determine in your heart and mind that today you will LIVE!”  I’ve been thinking a lot about living lately and not letting anything keep you from doing what you feel to do.

Living is more than just getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home and sitting in front of a TV or computer monitor until time for bed.  Living is being involved with those that matter and doing the things that matter!

Living is getting up in the morning and kissing your spouse like you haven’t seen them in three weeks (after you’ve brushed your teeth, of course).  Living is going to work and putting everything you can into the job and leaving it there when it’s time to go home.  Living is coming home, hugging your kids, and going outside to spend as much quality time with them as possible.  Living is doing as much as you can with those that you love and care for the most.

How do you live when you’re on a fixed budget?  How do you live when you have too many irons in the fire?  How do you live when you’re so dead tired from giving everything you can to the job?

It’s important that we learn how to put people and things into perspective and prioritize.  Who and what matters most to me?  These are two questions we should ask ourselves, and then do what we can to ensure that the people and things that matter most are taken care of first.   Everyone and everything else will have to wait.

I realized something as I dwelt on the song and its meaning.  WE’RE ALL DYING!  Every day our bodies are deteriorating.  Our hearts, lungs, brain, kidneys and all other major organs get a little more worn and weary from the constant use.  You and I could drop dead in thirty seconds and we wouldn’t have another chance to do anything with the people that we love the most.

We’re not promised tomorrow.  So, if we’re not promised tomorrow, we need to live like tomorrow may not get here. 

I don’t want to go to the doctor’s office and look at x-rays’ before I decide to really live.  I’ve got a bucket list, but I don’t want to wait for bad news before I start checking things off.  I want to be the husband to my wife that she needs me to be.  I want to be the father, rather the dad, to my boys they need me to be.  I want to be a servant-leader to those I work with and to those for whom I work.  But most importantly, I want to be the best I can be for Christ.  After all, He’s the one who has given me the opportunity to live.  Not only to live, but to live life more abundantly.

What am I going to do, you ask?  Well, I’ve read the good book and I took a good, hard long look at what I’d do if I could do it all again.  And I’m going ski diving, Rocky Mountain climbing, going two point seven seconds on a bull named Fumanchu.  I’m going to love deeper, speak sweeter, and I’ll watch an eagle as it’s flying.  And I hope someday you get the chance to live, my friend, like you were dying.

Just my thoughts on a page…