Corey Fields preaching

June 17, 2007

Proverbs 11:23-30

            On a warm summer evening, a young boy is wide-eyed and all smiles as he, his baby sister, and their parents stroll through the most amazing place he has ever seen.  They’re at an amusement park.   It’s really the first time this boy has seen so many rides, and things to do, and toys, and food.  What did he want to do first?  He’s completely oblivious to anything his parents are saying as he half-runs, half-walks to the attraction that has caught his eye, his father barely holding on to his arm to keep from disappearing into the crowd.  So many things to do, so little time.  The goal:  to get to the next thing.  So he rides the cars.  He gets cotton candy.  He rides the cars again.  Then he rides the planes.  Then he rides the frogs.  Sometimes, while he was still on one ride he would see another he wanted to try, and from the ride he’s on he shouts to his dad, “Can we ride that next?”  He gets down from the ride and as soon as he hits the ground, like a cartoon character, he runs towards the next thing kicking up a cloud of dust behind him. 

            The day is over.  It’s gotten dark, and it’s time to go home.  The boy has had so much fun the whole day but now he is upset and crying as his dad drags him out to the car – much in the same way that he had been dragging his dad around the park.  His father asks, “What’s wrong?  Didn’t you have fun?”  All the boy keeps saying is, “I don’t want to leave!”  All day, he had run from one thing to the next thing, to the next thing.  Now, there was no “next thing.”

            The same boy grows up and becomes a young teenager.  Like a lot of teenage boys, he doesn’t say a lot, but you can often hear him say, “I can’t wait until…”  “I can’t wait until I get to high school.”  “I can’t wait until I can drive.”  “I can’t wait until my parents let me date.”  “I can’t wait until summer.”  There was so much coming to look forward to!  There was always something!  “I can’t wait for the new skateboard..,” “my own car,” “the junior prom,” “the summer camp…”  And most importantly, “I can’t wait to independent.”  And of course, his days and thoughts are consumed by “the girl.”  At first, it was “I can’t wait to be with Tammy again.”  The end of that same school year, “I can’t wait to get rid of Tammy.”  And the story was very similar with Amy, Rebecca, and Colleen.  In the blink of an eye, high school graduation is here.  Even though he now finds himself saying, “I can’t wait for college,” he also finds himself thinking about something that has never really bothered him before.  As he walks across the stage and proudly receives his diploma, he thinks to himself, “How has time gone so fast?”  And it’s a funny thing:  Every once in a while, he thinks about how he never quite appreciated the freedom and simplicity of being a child, and wishes he was there again.

            College.  Much like the boy in the amusement park that he once was, he’s having a great time, but still loves the phrase “I can’t wait.”  In college, “I can’t wait for class to be over.”  “I can’t wait until spring break.”  “I can’t wait until I actually have money.”   And most importantly, “I can’t wait to graduate and get a real job so that I don’t have to take classes anymore.”  Before long, he’s a senior doing an internship.  Graduation.  Interview.  Lands a job.  Quickly, he realizes that all of his college friends are scattering and going all kinds of different places, and he finds himself wondering, “How has time gone so fast?”  And it’s a funny thing:  Every once in a while, he thinks about how he never quite appreciated the security of still living under mom & dad’s roof, and wishes he was there again.

            As a single businessman, “I can’t wait to get married.”  As a married man, “I can’t wait to get away with the guys.”  As a parent, he was always getting his family to the next place.  He used to say to everyone before long trips, “When we leave, our gas tank will be full, and your bladders will be empty.  When we get there, our gas tank will be empty, and your bladders will be full.  And if your bladders are full before the gas tank is empty, God have mercy on you.”

            “I can’t wait until my children go off to college.”

            “I can’t wait until I retire.”

            And then one night, now an elderly man, it hits him.   He’s sitting at home, tired of what’s on TV, tired of reading, and he realizes that there is nothing to rush off to.  There’s no next thing.  It all hits him like a ton of bricks that, his whole life, he has lived with one foot in the future, and one foot in the past.  And now in this quiet moment, with the kids grown and gone, and the wife asleep, he’s forced to be in the present.  The present…a place he had barely ever been before.

            That’s not a true story in the sense that I have one particular person in mind as I tell it, but it’s a true story in the sense that there’s a little bit of it in all of us, don’t you think?  In fact, maybe there’s a whole lot of it in our world.  Think about it.  How much of our time do we spend either anxiously trying to get to some point in the future, or longing for something in the past?

Letting God shine through our life’s work.  Some of you might be thinking that this is a “carpe deim” sermon.  “Seize the day,” right?  You know that Sheryl Crow song that came out in 2002: “I’m gonna soak up the sun, I’m gonna tell everyone to lighten up.  I’m gonna soak up the sun, I’ve got my 45 on so I can rock on.”  You don’t need me to tell you that.  There are enough self-help gurus out there telling you to seize the day.  Letting God shine through our life’s work.

            Earlier we read a passage from Proverbs containing some of God’s wisdom for living.  I want to go back to verses 24 and 25.  You see the problem with the man in the story was not just that he never “seized the day” and lived in the present.  But it was also the fact that he never shared life.  He never saw his life as having a daily calling.  One of the ways I’ve seen that we can be so future-minded is in how you can hear people talking about their “calling” as something down the road…especially young people.  My calling is something I’m supposed to do or be later.  But God has given us a daily calling.  A daily calling to take what we do, what we have…our jobs, our gifts, our families…and live generously.  Live today, and live for others.  We’ve been called to take our life’s work and dedicate it to God and share it with others.  I’m only a young guy but I can imagine that one of the greatest blessings is being able to look back on your life and say, “I always lived in the  present and shared each day with God, my family, and my friends.”  “I loved willingly, I gave generously, and I dedicated everything I did to God.”  You know it was Jesus who said, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.”  I have to think that part of what Jesus wanted to teach us is that it’s a waste of today to be anxious for tomorrow.  There’s too much to do today!  A wise man once said that “tomorrow” never really comes, it just always becomes today.  And isn’t funny how we always say that “time flies.”  I say it all the time.  But time has never sped up.  60 seconds has always been a minute.  60 minutes has always been an hour.  24 hours has always been a day.  I’m convinced that the main reason time seems to fly is because I spend so much time trying to get to the next thing, and I miss it.

            Earlier I told you a parable…a story that wasn’t true but has a true lesson for all of us.  But now I would like to share with you another story…a true story.  Take a look.

            You see those two guys don’t run races for the sake of finishing.  Their goal is not the finish line.  Their goal is the race.  Their goal is sharing life.  Their goal is living generously.  As Christians, the finish line is not our goal either.  In life we don’t have to run towards our finish line.  The finish line comes to us whether we like it or not.  But we have a calling – for this minute, for this hour, for this day.

            Father’s have this key role to play in this.  Father’s show their children how to let God shine through your life’s work.  How to share life.  How to live generously.  How to live today.  Now, on Mother’s Day, I mentioned my mother and how I was blessed with a wonderful mom.  So you might be wondering about my father.  Well, my father wasn’t that involved in my life.  In his own way he was always running towards the next thing…most often, the next drink.  But that was yesterday, and my father’s finish line has already come.  The significance that Father’s Day has for me is that I’m about to be one.