Enjoy Life!
Wanting to beat the Thanksgiving crowd we left Southern California late last night and arrived home this morning …2:30am to be exact! We had a great visit with family. Good food! Lots of laughs and good memories! As our families grow, each visit gets harder and harder to leave. After a visit with my brother and his family, we took off into the night to catch the 99. During the drive home you get some thinking time, and I kept coming back to the last words of my “good-bye” with Sandy, my brother’s mother-in-law…”Enjoy life.” Those words, so simple, yet hit me like a ton of bricks. Let me explain.
Sandy and Lloyd are missionaries. Lloyd is a contractor at heart, and so he uses his gift by building churches and orphanages overseas. Sandy loves people! When you walk into her presence you sense the love of God flow out of her. She always looks for ways to serve the locals wherever she is at. This couple has traveled the world and impacted so many lives! Including mine! I had the opportunity to see them at work a number of years ago, when I spent a week with them in Honduras. Lloyd was building an orphanage and Sandy was being a blessing to the people. They have traveled throughout Central America, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominica Republic, and many countries throughout the continent of Africa. A matter of fact, they just got back a week ago from Uganda! As Lloyd and Sandy shared their experiences and photos with my family, you could hear the humility and love in what they do. Their love for God and their attitude of wanting to be used by Him is very much felt! How I enjoy being in their presence. Oh, by the way…did I tell you that they are in their early 70’s!
Yet those last words of Sandy…”Enjoy life.”…made the biggest impression on me. It blows me away how God uses people at the right time in my life to speak the words that I need to hear. With a birthday creeping up, I have been looking back at all these years and wondering where the time has gone. Have I made a difference with this life God has given me? Have I lived up to all my potential? Then as I hit this new age I begin to try to figure out the future. Job. College for the girls. What will life be when the girls leave the house? Getting old. Worry. Anxiety. What will life look like in the next ten to twenty years as my wife and I hit our “golden years”.
As Sandy’s words echoed through my mind I was reminded of Ecclesiastes11:7-8a
While thinking on the road, I began to ask why? Why would Sandy and Lloyd go to the outermost parts of the world? I knew their first answer, the Lord’s irrevocable call in their life. Yet why would a couple in their 70’s with family, pick up and go? The answer was in the words of Sandy…they ENJOYED LIFE! They lit up as they shared their adventures. The excitement in their voices was the reassurance of knowing that they were right where God wanted them! I want that! And that’s what I needed to hear. In the midst of life, responsibility and uncertainty, I sometimes forget to just enjoy life! Enjoy my time with my wife, children, job and future. So much time can be wasted by dwelling on things that sometimes are out of your hands. Yes, I have made mistakes and have been foolish in my youth and oh how I wish I could have known then what I know now. Yet here I am decades later from the time I came into this world and a whole lot of life ahead of me. What a lesson Sandy taught me. My friends, enjoy life! For life is short. It comes and eventually it will go. We will be dead longer than we will be alive, so live life to the fullest as God being the center in everything we do. You have heard me say it many of times…you are hear for such a time as this! Your call is irrevocable so make it count! Thank you Sandy!
His call. His gift to you. Your purpose. Irrevocable.
Sandy and Lloyd are missionaries. Lloyd is a contractor at heart, and so he uses his gift by building churches and orphanages overseas. Sandy loves people! When you walk into her presence you sense the love of God flow out of her. She always looks for ways to serve the locals wherever she is at. This couple has traveled the world and impacted so many lives! Including mine! I had the opportunity to see them at work a number of years ago, when I spent a week with them in Honduras. Lloyd was building an orphanage and Sandy was being a blessing to the people. They have traveled throughout Central America, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominica Republic, and many countries throughout the continent of Africa. A matter of fact, they just got back a week ago from Uganda! As Lloyd and Sandy shared their experiences and photos with my family, you could hear the humility and love in what they do. Their love for God and their attitude of wanting to be used by Him is very much felt! How I enjoy being in their presence. Oh, by the way…did I tell you that they are in their early 70’s!
Yet those last words of Sandy…”Enjoy life.”…made the biggest impression on me. It blows me away how God uses people at the right time in my life to speak the words that I need to hear. With a birthday creeping up, I have been looking back at all these years and wondering where the time has gone. Have I made a difference with this life God has given me? Have I lived up to all my potential? Then as I hit this new age I begin to try to figure out the future. Job. College for the girls. What will life be when the girls leave the house? Getting old. Worry. Anxiety. What will life look like in the next ten to twenty years as my wife and I hit our “golden years”.
As Sandy’s words echoed through my mind I was reminded of Ecclesiastes11:7-8a
“Light is sweet, and it pleases the eyes to see the sun. However many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all…”
While thinking on the road, I began to ask why? Why would Sandy and Lloyd go to the outermost parts of the world? I knew their first answer, the Lord’s irrevocable call in their life. Yet why would a couple in their 70’s with family, pick up and go? The answer was in the words of Sandy…they ENJOYED LIFE! They lit up as they shared their adventures. The excitement in their voices was the reassurance of knowing that they were right where God wanted them! I want that! And that’s what I needed to hear. In the midst of life, responsibility and uncertainty, I sometimes forget to just enjoy life! Enjoy my time with my wife, children, job and future. So much time can be wasted by dwelling on things that sometimes are out of your hands. Yes, I have made mistakes and have been foolish in my youth and oh how I wish I could have known then what I know now. Yet here I am decades later from the time I came into this world and a whole lot of life ahead of me. What a lesson Sandy taught me. My friends, enjoy life! For life is short. It comes and eventually it will go. We will be dead longer than we will be alive, so live life to the fullest as God being the center in everything we do. You have heard me say it many of times…you are hear for such a time as this! Your call is irrevocable so make it count! Thank you Sandy!
His call. His gift to you. Your purpose. Irrevocable.
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