Tick Tock…

Good morning, afternoon and evening everyone. I hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for a great Halloween weekend. I would like to thank everyone who was able to make it this past Wednesday to help pass out flyers to our Fall Festival which will be taking place Halloween evening from 6pm to 9pm. It probably seemed like a really simple thing, but it will be worth it to see these people who live across the street from the church come out and see what we are all about. I also want to thank everyone who will be working it this weekend. I know there are a million other things that you could be doing, and the fact that you will choose to volunteer at a church is pretty amazing! I’m not saying that it won’t be a lot of fun, but I know there are always temptations to do other things besides church stuff.
Because we didn’t have service this past Wednesday, I am going to write about something that is unrelated to what we have been talking about in Ignite. I hadn’t really heard from my Dad in a couple weeks, and he happened to call me last Sunday. It’s not terribly out of the ordinary, but then he said “Hey, I just wanted to let you know…” in one of those tones that you just know something bad is about to follow. It seemed like a couple minutes until he finished, and he basically told me he had gotten into a pretty rough car accident. Now, by rough I mean both he and my sister were pretty sore and their truck was totaled, but they were okay. They were sitting at a light, and my Dad happened to notice a police car behind them. He hurried up buckled his seat belt, then began talking to my sister some more. A couple seconds later he looked up and saw the light had changed, so he pulled forward and was suddenly hit from the side. He said the truck began spinning and they were dazed because of the smoke from the air bags. They made it out and everything was fine, but it really shook him up. You know when something bad happens to you or almost happens to you, you begin to think about how much worse or better it could have been. My Dad sat there and thought about what could’ve happened if he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, and what could have happened if he had started going as soon as the light had changed. In his mind, the outcome could have been much worse and it really shook him up.
I am telling this story because I think we have all been somewhere near here. There have been times in our lives where stuff has happen that have really shaken us up. As much as these things can hurt and scar, I think they are almost necessary to us. We live our lives very routinely. For me, I wake up at about the same time, I take a shower and I get Hayden up and get him dressed. We leave the house around 8:20 and that gives me enough time to get to the church, drop Hayden off, and be in my office by 9. I have all of my routines, and I just like it that way. We all have routines, and sometimes we become so complacent in these routines that we miss out on stuff that God has for us. We lose sight of the good things and forget how good they can feel. In Mark, Jesus is talking and he says that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.” Most of the time, we used this scripture to illustrate the time at which Jesus will return to this world and take all of the believers with them. I totally agree, but I also think you can also use this to illustrate the time that you will die. It’s a simple thing, yet we get so wrapped up in routines and complacency that we lose sight of it. There will be a day that you will die. I know when I was your age, the thought rarely hit my mind. Now that I am the ripe old age of 26, I have begun to realize that I am in fact mortal. I could seriously die tomorrow. I am not telling you all of this to scare you, I am telling you this to warn you. I want to warn you that you have no idea how much time you have left on this earth, so you need to live everyday as if it were your last. This doesn’t necessarily mean going absolutely crazy, but spending less time worrying about things, and more time with the truly important things. I hope all of you get the chance to get to know Jesus and I hope everyone will understand that He doesn’t keep you from living life, He helps you live life! I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!!!