Renew your commitment to the important things
About this time each year our family sneaks out of North Idaho for a week and finds some sunshine, golf and sometimes we take in a spring training baseball game.
Even though two of our kids are in college (and we have added a daughter in law), we continued our long-standing tradition and spent last week in Arizona. Let me assure you, the sun still exists in other areas of the country. There were a couple of days that my wife even complained it was a little too hot. However, when we mention that to our friends we don’t get much sympathy.
Years ago, on one of these spring trips south, we borrowed the home of our Uncle Bob who had just passed away from cancer. His house was going to be sold and this was our last opportunity to use it. My daughter Lyndie was trying to put her used breakfast plate on the kitchen counter. She just couldn’t quite reach it and the plate dropped to the tile floor and broke.
We had the quick sense of panic for a moment, but then it hit me, we couldn’t call Uncle Bob and apologize about the plate. It didn’t matter if we went out and bought a replacement. In the next week or so all the dishes were being boxed up and donated to the local Goodwill. I looked around at other stuff in the house. None of it seemed to matter anymore; it was all going to be given away.
That experience has caused me to be thinking about my life. What are the things that I hold as precious or important that someday, when I am gone, will be boxed up and given away? I have a renewed sense of passion to concentrate on the important things. To hold more tightly to the things that matter like my relationship with God, with others, and sharing His Kingdom.
As we move into this Easter season, I encourage you to renew your commitment to the important things, the things that matter, the things that CAN’T be boxed up at the end of your life and given away. What if every decision we made we asked ourselves, “how does doing this, buying this, investing time in this … how does it make the world and the Kingdom of God a better place?”
As Easter approaches would you join me in renewing our own sense of passion for the things that really matter?
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)
Chad Wilks is in his 25th year as senior pastor at Sandpoint Church of the Nazarene.