a case of the mondays

i've been thinking about blogging for quite some time now. not that my thoughts are all the provocative, but i guess i just felt like putting my thoughts down for others to read in this modern format. with that being said, i'll start with the thing that has plagued me most over these last few years now that social networking and "statuses" are such a big part of our lives.

probably the most popular subject i read about as others attempt to tell us how they're feeling on any given day is "friday". you've inevitably read a status dealing with this topic, and you know exactly what that means. it means that someone is longing for that day, longing for the weekend to be here. typically i see this the most on mondays, or even the aptly labeled "hump day" that is wednesday. perhaps a weekend filled with rest, or an event that someone is looking forward to.. the possibilities are endless. so why does this plague me? i'm not disturbed that someone is looking forward to an event in their lives, but what does disturb me is how we tend to live for 3 days. it seems as though the majority of our week is something to "get through", but isn't it the little things that make life worth living? what do we miss when we look ahead so much?

i'm not a beatles fan, nor am i a fan of john lennon, but i have to give him credit for his singing "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans*." it should bother us more that we're not living for each moment, shouldn't it? when i think about this, i get charged up as though i were listening to an invigorating speech by william wallace himself. he's essentially shouting to us who have lost our zest for life "do you want to hide and live a life worth regretting, or do you want to live for this moment and know that you did everything you could?" sadly enough, the church is not immune to this. i wish i could see christians every day who are making the most of the time they have. i often wonder if the words of Jesus have fallen on deaf ears as he exclaims "a thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. i came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.**" the very words we claim to follow are the words that tell us to wake up and live for each moment. such simple words.. "wake up!" if only we would.

or perhaps it's that we look to the past as the "prime" of our lives, and we long for it as though we can get back to that place. there's a word for this: nostalgia. do you know someone like this? or perhaps you are this person. or have been. i have been. in living life like this, i can attest to the words of rob bell when he says "there's a certain kind of despair that sets in when we believe that things were better back then. when we're stuck back there. when we're not fully present. when we're still holding on to how things were, our arms aren't free to embrace today... if you live in the fantasy that you will get around to it tomorrow, that you'll get around to them tomorrow, you will wake up and it will not be tomorrow, it will be yesterday and you will have missed it, you will have missed them... the answer is to be so fully present here and now that you don't miss a thing in this day.***" how true and powerful are these simple words that remind us that all we have is today.

so may you live this life. may you live the life Jesus has provided for you and called you to live. may you wake up. may we all.

*i know it's not an original quote, just liked the wording
**john 10:10 from "the message" translation
***from the video today in rob bell's video series nooma

note: i encourage you to check out today as well as the movie click as these both touch on this subject in some way.