WHAT IF

As a church, Saddleback finished their 4-week series One Month to Live, based on the book, One Month To Live. The authors Kerry and Chris Shook concluded the series with an amazing life story and background of their book. To be completely honest, I really was not looking forward to this series at Saddleback Church; however, it was something that I was going to commit to reading and attending the services listening to Doug Fields talk on the series.

Honestly, the last half of 2007 (basically June-December) weren’t the best months of my life. I was dealing with a lot of personal “issues” (guys have issues and girls just have problems) and dealing with a lot of confidence and insecurity issues. Even into the beginning of this year, I was still struggling with some of those issues. On top of that, I my work schedule was constantly changing. I was working 6-10 day workweeks from the last week of February until just a week ago, working over 60 hours of “volun-told” overtime that I didn’t want.

However, during this time God was setting a lot of that time aside for me to be alone with Him. I was dealing with two very important issues in my life. For almost three months I knew that I’ve needed to tend to some unfinished business, but it was something that I had been procrastinating on since late January. After the second weeks message, we were challenged to love like I’m forgiven. The ending of that message was the last push of encouragement and motivation that I needed, to go forward in faith and do something that God had kept on my heart for so long. It wasn’t easy, nor was it something that I wanted to do, but I knew it had to be done.

This morning, as I sat in church at Yorba Linda Friends I was listening to Pastor Matthew Cork finish his series, Life In Balance: Simplicity. To summarize his sermon:

Simplicity is not:
- a checklist of do’s and don’ts
- just a change in lifestyles or habits
- necessarily the opposite to complexity
Simplicity is:
- a call to a life of focus, not simply a plan of action (Matthew 6:33)
- an inward reality that changes our outward lifestyle (Matthew 22:37-39)
- a freedom from self, and a willingness to surrender our rights for the good of others.

In the message Matthew made two comments that I really took to heart. First, “You will only love God as much as you love the person whom you least like.” Being that I basically ended a friendship due to several circumstances (which I will not go into), it was definitely encouraging hearing that. I believe that you can completely forgive someone for all the hurts and pains that they may have caused with out wanting to restore any type of friendship.

Also, I am a person who loves my space, my comfort zone, and for the most part I am usually not a huge risk taker. I’m the type of person that will evaluate, research, and calculate the pros and cons before jumping into a decision. With that said, Matthew brought up a point of having visible “warning indicators” in our lives for decisions that we face. If that actually existed, believe me, I’d be the first one to get one. I like knowing what I’m about to get involved in. I don’t like going into any situation blind, nevertheless unprepared.

Sometimes I feel that I live a lot of my life on the safe side, especially when it comes to relationships and friendships. There are reasons why I don’t put myself into compromising situations, or try to go a little further that what I know would be pleasing to God. I’ll be the first to admit that I have hurt a lot of people close to me, but mostly not on purpose. A lot of times it was done out of ignorance. For those of you who really know me, I am probably one of the most respectful, honest, open, and down to earth people that you know. Yes, I know I do have a little of a cynical side to me, but for those of you who know the “real me,” you know that I have a ton of positive attributes that I try to uphold on a daily basis. Bare with me, I’m going somewhere with this…really, I am.

Back to tonight…as I mentioned earlier, we finished the series, One Month To Live. From the four key points of the series, live passionately, live completely, live humble, and live boldly, we were challenged to do three things on a regular basis with the people closest in our lives:

- say what you mean now (tell them that you love them, encourage them, and admonish them on a regular basis),
- show them how you feel be following through with actions, and
- share it now…don’t wait.

As of last week, I am completely comfortable knowing that if I died tomorrow that I would have no regrets. I’ve made my peace with God, I know I am saved, my friendships and relationships have been restored, and I am confident in knowing that in every deep and personal friendship and relationship that I’ve been in, I’ve left each and every one of them in a better and healthier place than when I first met them. We’ve all grown and walked through several valleys together. Am I saying that my life is perfect? Not at all. Now that everything is completely restored I can use the remainder time here to deepen and strengthen the ones that I already have.

So, if tomorrow I was told that I only had one month to live what would I do? I’d embrace those closest to me and spend every moment making memories for the future.