** How Are
You Living Your Dash?
James 3:13-18
What if you knew for sure that you have just 30 days left to
live? How would live out that one month? What things would
you do? What would matter enough to focus on and what would
suddenly become unimportant? What would consume those 30
days and what would be discarded?
**
I want to challenge each of you,
for the next 30 days and beyond, adopt a one month to live
outlook on life.
If I had one month to live, surely it might open my eyes up
to seeing my blessings as blessings, rather than bearing
them like burdens. Maybe I would make that phone call that
I’d put off for many years. Maybe I would ask forgiveness
for a wrong that I had committed. In my personal life and in
the pastoral ministry I have seen people call others to
their bedside as they neared the end of this life to take
care of many things.
The dying person may have made tremendous confessions, or
ask for forgiveness as they attempted to right many wrongs.
This may sound noble, but is it? Is it noble to live for
years with bitterness, regret, disappointment, pain, sin,
and then, when it’s in fact the most convenient, unload
those burdens on those who will be left behind as we pass
into the next life? Is it noble to make it right when
there’ll be no responsibility or burden of living right
after that?
**At the end of our
lives we often see things with clarity. I’m convinced
that it’s because at the end, all of our false pretense is
stripped away. Now we have nothing to shield us from being
honest with self, with others, or with God.
** I want to invite
you to commit within yourself to living life as though it
were your last 30 days. Deeply invest into the material from
this message today.
taken seriously, we have an opportunity in front of us to
grow deeply as individuals and widely as a church. Join me
in this journey. My deepest desire is that the Holy Spirit
will use this message to affect some spiritual growth in all
of us.
TEXT: **
James 3:13-18 (KJV)
13 Who is a
wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew
out of a good conversation his works with meekness of
wisdom. 14 But if ye have bitter envying and
strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the
truth.
15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but
is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where
envying and strife is, there is confusion and
every evil work. 17 But the wisdom that is from
above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy
to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without
partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18 And the
fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make
peace.
PRAY
**We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. A man named
Harold Kushner once wrote, “I
am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives
ending, that haunts our sleep so much as the fear … that as
far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have
lived.”
Indeed, our time on this earth is limited. No matter how
uncomfortable it is for you or I, there is one universal
principal in this life; it will end for us all. The
question is not
“how do I avoid death.”
Rather, it is “how do I avoid
not having lived.” The reality of our own
mortality should not paralyze us but rather fuel us. My life
and yours is happening right now, this second!
When I was a child I remember thinking how great it would be
when I got bigger, stronger, more independant.
When I got older, not bigger, I remember thinking how
wonderful it would be when I could get out on my own and
make my life what I wanted it to be.
As a young adult and newly married and later with a son, I
remember thinking how great my life would be when Becky and
I would settle down back home and start working and
accomplish our dreams. Then
one day it occurred to me that I was always looking off to
the future and not really living for that day.
It occurred to me that my life was happening
right then, not some day down the road!
May be that some of you who may be in your later years,
think excessively on the past. Dreaming is important but
forgetting to live now places the future before the present.
Remembering the beauty of yesterday has great value but
living too much in the past robs us of the present.
**
Life is happening right now.
** How we live fuels
our today and what happened in the past should instruct our
present. Life is today’s activity, what’s happening right
now in your life. I heard a fellow tell of his
fascination with old gravestones, their dates and
inscriptions. He said he often wondered about their lives,
even though he never knew them or anything about them. He
was just fixated about the past.
He said he remembered looking at some grave sites wondering
what kind of people they were. What was their life like?
On a gravestone, there are typically**
two dates and a dash in
between. Sometimes there’s a passage of Scripture
or a few words about the person:**
great wife, husband, mother or father. A friend to
mankind, and so on. These words seldom really capture
even a portion of the life that the person lived.
However, between the two dates, a dash makes a statement.
Our lives, all that we are, all that do, all that makes up
our existence, are what we did in the dash. So and so was
born on such and such a date,
lived life in the dash,
and then died on such and such a date. Know this.**
We are presently, each one of
us, living in the dash. Here is something you need to
remember; **
We don’t get to choose the length of the dash,
only the breadth and value
of the life we live in it. How are we presently
using our dash? Are we in a mad dash to pack in as much as
possible into our dash? Are we dashing to live, speedily
pursuing things that really don’t matter and won’t last?
**“Teach
us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of
wisdom.” (Psalms 90:12 NIV) God has called us to
live fully in the recognition that our days are limited so
that we will recognize the value of this moment, this
moment, and now this moment. Life is short so in its
brevity, live your life so there will be meaning when you
are gone!
Our time is in the hands of the sovereign God of creation.
**He
does, though, give us the choice about how we will use the
time we are given.
God determines the length of our
dash, we determine its breadth
and value
.
For some,
when learning that they only have 30 days to live, they
wouldn’t have to change much at all. There are those who are
confident that they have, in fact, not been wasting their
dash.
For these people the news of 30 days to live is shocking,
painful, and while they mourn for the hurt of those they
leave behind, they rest assured that they have been living
each day as the great gift of God that it is.
If you are one of these people that is great!
If you are not, the next 30 days
or so is about becoming one of these people. In
the grand scheme of things even the longest life of 100+
years is relatively short.
** “Now
listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this
or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make
money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little
while and then vanishes.” (James 4:13-14 NIV)
But don’t view the brevity of life as a means of
discouragement. Accept what is and learn to know what it
means. ** God wants
your life to matter no matter how many years you have.
** “For
I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the
time has come for my departure. I have fought the good
fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
(II Timothy 4:6-7 NIV)
We won’t use our dash perfectly, no matter how hard we try,
but if we’re not intentional about how we use it, we won’t
even experience a portion of the victory in this life that
is available to us in Christ.
For the next 30 days or so, I want to invite you to be
honest with yourself.**
No change was ever taken place in the heart which didn’t
deal with itself honestly.
Too many people want to put their past behind them without
every focusing on what’s in front of them. Far too often we
want change but we’re not willing to be honest about the
things that we need to change.
**
Victory never comes
cheaply.
If we knew that we only had 30 days to live we would likely
right some wrongs, we would love those we have neglected to
love, forgive those for whom we harbor some bitterness, and
we would probably see our lives in radically different
terms.
But
** why wait until
then to get it right? The two great errors with
this is that
1st,
there are those who say I am too young to care, I’ll get it
right later.
2ndly,
There are those who say, I am too old too care, it’s too
late or I already got it wrong or at least, as right as I’m
gonna get it.
Hear the command of the Lord:**
"In
your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you
are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. He
who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work,
doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have
something to share with those in need. Do not let any
unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is
helpful for building others up according to their needs,
that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of
redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger,
brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be
kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other,
just as in Christ God forgave you.”
(Ephesians 4:26-32 NIV)
Older Christian, **
there is no expiration date on the command of God. Younger
Christian, we are not promised tomorrow.
** Will you make the
next 30 days count in a way that has lasting impact on the
rest of our dash?
The dash poem
I READ OF A MAN WHO STOOD
TO SPEAK
AT THE FUNERAL OF A FRIEND
HE REFERRED TO THE DATES ON
His TOMBSTONE
FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE
END
HE NOTED THAT FIRST CAME
THE DATE OF HIS BIRTH
AND SPOKE OF THE FOLLOWING
DATE WITH TEARS
BUT HE SAID WHAT MATTERED
MOST OF ALL
WAS THE DASH BETWEEN THOSE
YEARS
FOR THAT DASH REPRESENTS
ALL THE TIME
THAT HE SPENT ALIVE ON
EARTH
AND NOW ONLY THOSE WHO
LOVED HIM
KNOW WHAT THAT LITTLE LINE
IS WORTH
FOR IT MATTERS NOT, HOW
MUCH WE OWN
THE CARS, THE HOUSE, THE
CASH
WHAT MATTERS IS HOW WE LIVE
AND LOVE
AND HOW WE SPEND OUR DASH
SO THINK ABOUT THIS LONG
AND HARD
ARE THERE THINGS YOU’D LIKE
TO CHANGE?
FOR YOU NEVER KNOW HOW MUCH
TIME IS LEFT
THAT CAN STILL BE
REARRANGED
IF WE COULD JUST SLOW DOWN
ENOUGH
TO CONSIDER WHATS TRUE AND
REAL
AND ALWAYS TRY TO
UNDERSTAND
THE WAY OTHER PEOPLE FEEL
AND BE LESS QUICK TO ANGER
AND SHOW APPRECIATION MORE
AND LOVE THE PEOPLE IN OUR
LIVES
LIKE WE’VE NEVER LOVED
BEFORE
IF WE TREAT OTHERS WITH
RESPECT
AND MORE OFTEN WEAR A SMILE
REMEMBERING THAT THIS
SPECIAL DASH
MIGHT ONLY LAST A LITTLE
WHILE
SO WHEN YOUR EULOGY IS
BEING READ
WITH YOUR LIFES ACTIONS TO
REHASH
WOULD YOU BE PROUD OF THE
THINGS THEY SAY
ABOUT HOW YOU SPENT YOUR
DASH?
LINDA ELLIS