Tracks In The Dust

A Father's Advice About Learning the Mission of Life

Archive for the tag “cherish”

Predicting the Future

There are some days that I think how great it would be to predict the future. You would be able to know where things would be going. You could be confident that each day would be set. There would be no guessing about the challenges ahead. There would be less fear of the unknown. No worries about tomorrow. You could help so many others and yourself in so many ways.

Knowing the future would mean you could win the lottery or buy the next big stock (if I had only bought Apple stock when my friends told me). You could stop bad things from happening, and be present for the exciting things. Yes I know all the complicated science around changing events on the space-time continuum – they have made movies and books about that and site all of what Einstein was theorizing (even though many more have gone further in this whole thing). Even Dr. Brown explained it well ( for you Back to the Future fans). Still it might be cool to know. Maybe.

Then I realize that there’d be little to desire, not much to dream for. It would constantly be sad for the surprise and the adventure of our God-given life on Earth would be gone.  We would know things we don’t want to know, and see things we could not change even as we knew they were coming. Even our own fateful demise would be waiting off in the predictable future. Our sense of self-value would be distorted. If we are all going to die eventually, does it benefit us to know when? Or should we instead be spending every day as the precious thing it is.

No.. Not really a good thing to know the future.  All of the negatives would far outweigh the positives.  Time is forever marching forward and we are moving ahead as it unfolds (okay there are scientists that will argue that one too). We are in Gods hands and our own path is ours to choose. Not really in the here and now though as much as in the choice for eternity after this life.

We can take each day as it comes and make it work for us. When so many people in this world cannot predict where their next morsel of food or drink will come;we should consider that “fortunate” predictability in our futures, and be thankful. Take consideration for the unknown. Realize that life is there to be cherished, and worry will not overcome you. Even as we know life will end, we can take this next moment in the future of our lives to be grateful for e opportunity to be here, to have known each other.

Maybe I’m Amazed

 

Maybe I’m Amazed.

Maybe I’m amazed by the way we can make “something” out of “nothing”. And sometimes we like it and sometimes we hate it.

Maybe I’m amazed how there are always two stories to everything, and then there is the real story. Looking through our own eyes, we see them through our own lens and it has so many colors.

Maybe I’m amazed that after 30+ years of marriage I am still in love with the same person. Love is not negotiable, it has ups and downs but it can be always and forever.

Maybe I’m amazed that more people don’t know about how find the beginning of something new, and stay stuck in one direction wondering when things will change.

Maybe I’m amazed that we only have a certain amount of time here on Earth, but we treat it so poorly- letting days go by without appreciating our time and using it to do what God has expected us to do. The rewards are endless.

Maybe I’m amazed that there are so many beautiful, wonderful people in this world, yet so many people are attracted to the negative things around them.

We all have a path. For us so fortunate to be able to make choices, we can. Yes we have the ability to change. We can choose at any moment to make things better.

So with so many in the world that cannot choose, we need to take that power and choose for the better. Help show others the way.

 

What Do You Do With It?

There is something about being told by a doctor how you might leave this Earth that is kind of creepy. I mean we are all going to go someday. Like my previous post “time waits for no one”, it moves on and there is no way to halt it or turn it around. There is not a way to stop the end. People search for the fountain of youth, do as many things possible in some cases to make themselves look young. They take miracle drugs and infomercial remedies that are supposed to make the look and feel younger. But in the end we are all headed for the mortal end.

No matter what the future looks like , there are many times we don’t see it coming. I had a niece who was a wonderful girl with a hopeful future who wanted to see what life would bring, but in the process she took too many chances with her life and lost it at an age before she experienced her 24th year. In other cases we may be able to  wait for age to catch up and maybe somewhere along the way we physically wear out, or a disease or other plights gets the better of us. When cancer is a reality, there are so many other realities you may not be thikning about- like that inevitable sudden step off the curb, or the last adventure to take-on the mountain or obstacle worth tackling that brings the end.

So I am really sure that it will end for all of us. I think you probably believe that too. What we do with the time we have here on Earth is the way to put value on our life while we have it. God tells us that we are going to have a place here in the world, and after we leave it.  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

But some how, for some of us, we find our ways to cycle through the hours, days and weeks and wonder how they often get past us with little difference. We get frustrated because we havent felt we have been significant, we aren’t very sure if we have made the time between those major events in our lives worth it when they are just “living”. But we can make it worth it every day, by being there for the people around us, living with the spirit of goodness and all its attributes always.

So we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that life goes on forever here on Earth. That our tracks in the dust will last forever here. We have to wake up each day and cherish it for what it is and what we can make of it. Enjoy the simple pleasures, celebrate the victories however small or large they are. Be thankful for the people around you and the people you have known over your lifetime. When the time is over, be confident that because you believe,  you will have another place to be for eternity.

Related Link

http://istopforsuffering.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/accentuate-the-positive-3/

 

 

Time Waits For No One

I have heard it said that “time waits for no one.” Time is ticking away and as far as we know we have no control over it ( we could argue time travel here i imagine). We try to hold on to the special moments in time. We have many yesterdays that we would work hard to hold on to because they are so unique; they signify something that is special that makes a place and time part of what we are. We would love to go back and experience them again, or change things that went askew, because they have seemed to go by so fast, but meant so much.

But time wont wait. Its time that we want to to remember but even time erodes the details of what made it so special. So we move along the linear thing that is what we call time. Holding on to yesterday with the best of intention, but yesterday is gone. It makes up the fabric of today, but it cannot be brought back to be relived again. It can’t be erased to make bad things go away, or reversed to correct a wrong. So that’s the way God planned it, that’s the way He meant it to be. And it becomes a treasure of a time we can cherish in our memory, or be that day or moment that changed everything after it for the rest of your life and perhaps even beyond that. Indelible, Unchangeable.

That is what we have to do with every day. Look at it as that self contained part of the building blocks that make up who you are today and who you will be tomorrow. But then let it go and look forward to what is next, because time waits for no one. No one but you can own that moment you have experienced behind your eyes. All those unrecorded seconds in time are yours alone. Share them with others, but they will never be as unique as your own experience. They are yours until your last breath. And even time has that one figured out as well. Eternity in the end will be what matters.

Hit the Reset Button!

 

Go ahead. Push the reset button. It may be hard to find, your own personal reset may be in a complicated place in your mind. It may be in a complex set of your own personal wiring that will be hard to find. But go ahead. Do it.

A while back my wife and I spent some time with some friends in this cabin in Oklahoma (pictured here) and just kind of stopped the pattern we had all been following for so many months before. Like taking a deep breath and exhaling back out, just some times you have to stop. It was so needed we didn’t even recognise it until we were there.

 Sit back in that quiet cabin in the woods, or take a bit of time to stroll through the park, or sit on the steps outside of where you live. Watch the world go by, because it doesn’t stop just because you did. But you have to be good with it anyway. You aren’t really missing anything that can’t wait for you to hit that “reset” button.

Just like when your computer gets so bogged down, or your wireless network stops transmitting the way you expect. You can hit the button and hope for the best. Let it all out. I know that we can, but then I know that often I wont. Keep insisting that I’d better plow forward with the “to do” list, to get those things done that have made me the “pro”-crastinator ( not an amateur believe me).  Oh that reward of a feeling of accomplishment… feels good.  So in this case, the accomplishment: Hit the button. Reset. It will still all be there to sort out. But maybe it will be much clearer than it was before…

Where ever it is, however you get there. Just take that time to make it yours and make sure that you clear the cache memory (for you geeks out there – you’ll get it). Then you can move on… it’s your time.

 

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