Sunday, February 12, 2017

Embrace Contemplation

Convalescing with a broken ankle or other injury that keeps you from doing the things you normally do causes some forced change in lifestyle. After two and a half months of being away from some common activity like driving yourself and walking any further than necessary for anything, I find myself checking off the things I am doing again "for the first time". As you might suspect, one of the "firsts" I really anticipated was getting back to the wood shop and picking up where projects (my own as well as other's) left off back in November. Although things are back to a pretty normal schedule, the feeling is a little different and perhaps looking at why it's different is worth examining.

Although the wood shop is working along fine, it gives me pause to remember the knowledge that one day will be the last day I spend in that place I love. That is the kind of thought that occurs to one during a time when we are slowed down and given time to think about what it is we truly love and the fact that whatever those things may be, one day they will be no more. This, of course, is true of things more important than wood working. A time of convalescence can be healthy if it allows us to consider just what our priorities are; things like relationships, especially with family and friends and the ways we can best serve in this short temporal life.

At our cores we all want our lives to have made a difference and when one convalesces thoughts of just how our lives may have really mattered. Stephen Covey in his classic best seller "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" listed as "Habit #2 - Begin with the end in mind. He suggested we imagine our own funeral and what we would want those in attendance to say about us. Just what was it about how you lived that left this world a better place than when you arrived. It's fair to say that this can happen only when we put others ahead of ourselves and humbly repent when we find ourselves involved in a bunch of self-serving activity.

I have come to believe that living with the intention of serving others can only be fully accomplished with regular attention to worshiping God. Someone has said that going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. The truth is only in a church can you hope to find the encouragement and accountability to truly follow Christ. This is a kinda funny place to end up a post about wood working. But then a period of convalescing gets you to thinking about what really matters and what it takes to make it happen.

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