“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God,” Luke 9:62. This is a truly remarkable scripture that I’m beginning my column with this week.
In all the years that I’ve met with folks, talked with them, counseled with them, and shared with them, I can’t remember a time when so many want to look back. It seems that many are almost stuck in a time warp. While many dwell on the past and days gone by, they are missing out on the present and their future. They are missing out on the best days of their lives!
On social media and even through email, I am constantly bombarded by posts or texts from people who want me to remember the way things used to be. While it’s good to reminisce sometimes, it is never good to stay there. Time is too valuable for that!
As a music lover, I love to go back on social media outlets like YouTube or even music listening sources like Pandora. I usually look for old 60’s or 70’s songs that I haven’t heard for a while. Those great old songs always bring back a memory. What I have found though is that if I listen too long that I will begin to feel melancholy and then a strange sadness will overtake me. I will begin to miss the days of my childhood and miss the days when my loved ones were there. While we must never forget those great memories, it is now time to step up and create new and even better ones.
Many who read this column are now considered to be in the “seniors” category. (Yes, we must come to grips with the fact that we are eligible for Senior Citizen’s discounts!) We have a lifetime of memories, and it’s easy to dwell in the past. We just don’t need to stay there for very long.
There are new songs to be written, new stories to tell and to write, new chapters to be written in each of our lives should God decide to leave us here a little longer. It’s time that we did just that!
If you’ve got an unofficial “bucket list” like I do, then you know that you’ve got a lot more life to live before you check out of here. So what are you doing about it? Are you just planning but not making preparations to actually “do it”?
A few years back, I met a man who was probably the best planner that I’d ever met. It was truly a gift from God that had been given him. He could take nothing and make something out of it. If you needed something organized, he was your man. But his talents seemed to stop there. He never DID anything with his plans. Finally one day, another man stepped up and said, “These are great plans, why don’t we implement them?”
Many of us are just like that man. We are all “talk” and no “do”! We’re great at planning and scheming, but we’re not good at putting legs on those plans.
Maybe you’ve been planning for decades to go on a trip. Maybe you’ve always wanted to go to New England, or out West, or even travel abroad. You’ve talked about for years how you plan to do that someday. Now you find yourself on the grayer side of life. Now the excuses become things like “Well, I just can’t get around like I used to”, or even, “You know I’m on a fixed income”. (I particularly hate the last excuse, because no one HAS TO BE on a fixed income.) It’s that you’ve just chosen to take the small penance from the government, and you’ve decided to sit down and die. (I refuse to be one of those people!)
It’s time to get up off of your lazy, retired backside and begin to contribute to society once again. God knows that if we all sit down, this country and many other things that we hold so dear will cease to exist past this next generation.
We need all hands on deck, and we don’t need a bunch looking back and wishing they had done this, or wishing they had done that. We need people with vision for sure, but we need people with ambition as well. There are plenty of naysayers, minimalists, and negative people out there to end life as we know it. It’s time to draw a line in the sand and make our minds up that life didn’t end for us in days gone by. It’s time to realize that God’s not through with us yet!
So my challenge to you is this, “What are you going to do about it?” I for one believe that my best years are yet to come. My hope and prayer is that you will get that same vision!
Garry Lovette is an author and counselor whose articles are seen in more than 135 countries of the world. To comment about his article, or to learn more about him, visit www.theawakened1.com