I have written on this before, but I want to ask again, what are you doing with your one precious life that God has given you? I think this is an important question to ask – especially as we pass from one life stage or major event to another. High school to college, single to married, unemployed to employed, no kids to having kids. You get the idea.
I can tell you that for much of the last 25 years my primary focus in life was my family. Marrying my husband, starting a family, raising our two daughters together. Much of what I did and the places where I served centered around them whether in the local church, school or community. Many of the friendships that were developed during those years came out of these choices connected to our daughters as well.
As someone who became an empty nester for the first time, last fall, it is a question I am asking myself right now. The empty nest is a new life stage that has been harder than I expected. It is one that quite suddenly freed up my schedule and my time in ways I could not have foreseen. I want to be deliberate in the choices I make, the activities I choose and the places where I serve. I don’t want to allow just anything to fill up those newly emptied hours and places.
Part of what started me thinking about this again was a verse I came across yesterday in my reading. Psalm 62:11-12 says, “One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving. Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done.” It was this last part that caught my attention and made me want to take the time to dig a little deeper.
My study notes referred to the following verses – Jeremiah 17:10 and Jeremiah 32:19. The first verse says, “I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to what his deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 32:19 goes on to say, “Great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Your eyes are open to all the ways of men; you reward everyone according to his conduct and as his deeds deserve.”
And finally, the study notes for those two verses pointed me to these final two verses. 1 Corinthians 3:8 which says, “The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.” And Ephesians 6:7-8 which tells us, “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, for you know the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does . . .”
Clearly, what we do and how we spend our time matters. Which has me asking again the question that Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet Mary Oliver asks in one of her poems, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”