Becoming Fully Alive

It’s a fact of life today that we’re busier than ever before. We go to work, we take work home, we stay glued to our phones and plugged into social media in ways that were unheard of even a decade ago. Most of us rush from one appointment to the next with little time to think about what we’re doing, or what this moment truly means. Far too many of us are too busy with life to actually engage in it.

When’s the last time you actually lived with whimsy? When did you last follow the dreams God planted inside your heart?

“Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those ‘we’ll go there next time’ deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no ‘next time’ because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.”

― Bob Goff, Love Does

We all mean to live a life that matters. No one sets out to merely go through the motions of life, yet at some point, we all seem to get so caught up in the small stuff that we often forget the big picture: every day we are called to love.

When we talk about life being a gift from God, we’re pretty sure that the gift is meant to go much deeper than our routine work weeks and our don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it weekends. One peek at the sheer variety of life and vibrancy displayed across creation should clue us in to the truth that our God has a whimsical side—that he wants us to slow down and rediscover his heart in the details that matter.

And there’s the funny thing. When we race from work to play and try to focus on a million superficial details of life and first-world problems, we lose sight of what really matters. It isn’t until we stop or slow down to mull over the details that we finally see the big picture.

Loving others. Serving others. Being Jesus to the people in our community who feel forgotten. Teaching our kids to think beyond themselves and to live by faith. These are the things that we are going to remember at the end of our life. Not how many people liked our selfies. Not even if we got that bigger paycheck. At the end of the day, we know that we are here to love, dream big, and become fully engaged in this amazing life.