Life often feels like a mighty rushing swollen river just seconds after it has smashed through a weary dam. The pace of the water is so fast and full of debris that nobody in his right mind would ever think of attempting to touch his lips to the surface to get a refreshing drink. Instead, he does everything he can to survive and to keep from being carried too far downstream. But something deep within me feels like life should be more like the small manageable stream that comes out of a water fountain. You might not catch ever ounce of water, but you get most of it.
I have 3,115 songs on my iPod. Many people have a lot more than I do. But even so, my iTunes software calculates that it would take 9.3 days to listen to all of it. I'm guessing that over the course of my lifetime, I've listened to every song in my collection at least once. But that's the problem. You can never really drink deeply from a song that you've only heard just once. I have no idea how many books I have, but I always feel like I'm racing through one just to get to the next one. Same goes for movies. And for writing fiction, and for reading poetry, and for taking walks by a lake.
Real life has real demands and all of us or in different stages of life, but most of us have some free time each day. In our haste though, we live our lives on the surface by attempting to do everything that catches our attention. I think we'd do better and feel more satisfied if we let our affairs be as two or three as Thoreau suggested.
That's not to say we couldn't enjoy other activities in our lives, but they wouldn't be our focus. I've often thought about how uncomplicated life used to be. At least that's my perception. Can you imagine Jesus carrying around a PDA just so he could keep his schedule straight? Or the Apostle Paul?
Speaking of Paul, he told the Corinthian church that God didn't send him to baptize people (although he did perform a few baptisms), but rather to preach the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:17). We also know that he was a tentmaker and a writer. So, he appeared to have three things that he did. He didn't jump from one thing to the next once he figured out what he was supposed to be doing.
Personally, I feel like there's a couple of things that I must do before I die. Accomplishing them will take a long time and neither seems to fit into my schedule right now. But when I take a step back and look at the many things I'm already doing that I don't necessarily have to do, then I realize that I do have the time. I'm just allowing the rushing river of life to push me and beat me up, rather than grabbing onto a lifeline, climbing out of the river and finding a couple of water fountains.
Can you relate?
