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Living the Day

FINDING PURPOSE AND PASSION IN LIFE

Living the Day

April 27, 2008

Text: Luke 12:13-21

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." 14 But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" 15 And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." 16 Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' 18 Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul , Soul , you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' 20 But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

NRSV

Imagine this scene.

You’re enjoying a lovely supper in a nice restaurant. You’re on a first date with someone you think may be very special. Everything is going so wonderfully well, you can’t believe it. You and your date are hitting it off fabulously. You’re at ease with each other. Your personalities seem to be a perfect fit. You have similar interests—even being avid Cardinal fans, and you know that’s important for true love.

There’s a relaxed break in the conversation. Dinner is now over, and you’re both enjoying coffee and cheesecake, and smiling at each other. Then, your date leans forward and says, “So tell me—what are you looking for in a spouse?”

Inside your head, you hear screeching brakes. That’s because you know that this date is OVER!

You lose enjoyment of a nice meal and great conversation when suddenly an agenda is placed on the table: “What do you think of marriage—a lifetime commitment—until DEATH do us part???”

Put concisely: You lose excitement TODAY—the joy of the moment disappears—when you let concerns of TOMORROW intrude.

Jesus is talking about a man who does just that.

He’s a very successful farmer. One year his crops produce an astronomical yield. Hundreds of bushels of soybeans. Corn so plentiful that there were three ears to the stalk.

You know what he could have done with all that?

He could have stored enough in the barns and silos he already had—they had more than enough capacity for him. Then, he could have sold the excess, and given money to the local food pantry and soup kitchen, feeding the hungry poor. He could have provided college scholarships for underprivileged kids. He could have given to a shelter for battered women.

Can’t you imagine how he would have felt—seeing grateful looks in the faces of the needy, the children, the abused women?

But…he never gives himself a chance to see such smiles.

He is more concerned about tomorrow. He draws up plans to tear down existing barns and silos. He’ll then build bigger, state-of-the-art facilities to hold the excess. He smiles as he dreams of how all this will increase his bottom line, his R.O.I., his net worth. He fools himself into thinking that if he can do this, then sometime in the future he can say, “NOW I can enjoy today!” But you and I both know he’ll never allow himself to reach that point.

Jesus ends the story with these chilling words:

God said to [the man, as he sits drawing up the blueprints for the new barns], 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'

“You fool!”

Here you are, on the internet, checking on how your portfolio is doing.

Here you are, on the phone, talking to your broker.

Here you are, trying to figure out the perfect allocation between stocks and bonds for your retirement.

Here you are, brushing up your resume to apply for that better job.

Here you are, looking ahead, building bigger barns for tomorrow, and suddenly—while you’re looking ahead to tomorrow—you die. You never saw it coming.

This story isn’t about not planning ahead. You have to do that.

This story is about putting your happiness into tomorrow or the next day, and not allowing yourself to have the full happiness God is offering you today.

I believe God offers each of us daily opportunities to say, “Life is good.” But do we take them?

A man lost his wife of many years. As he goes through her things, he opens the bottom drawer in his wife’s bureau. He lifts out a beautiful, hand-made slip of silk and lace. The pricetag was still on it, and it was astronomical.

The husband said to the person helping him, “Jan bought this 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She said she was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is a special occasion.”

Having said that, he lays it out on the bed, beside the dress he’ll take to the mortician. He then turns to his friend and says, "Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion."

So, how do you make every day a special occasion?

Here’s one way.

MAKE THE DAY MORE BEAUTIFUL.

In 1958, a woman who lived in a modest home on some acreage asked herself how she could make things more beautiful. She decided that daffodils would do the trick. So she began planting daffodils. For over thirty years she planted daffodils. People would drive for miles in the spring to see them.

On the side of her house she put this poster: “50000 bulbs…Planted 1 at a time, by 1 woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain.”

Yes, but a big heart.

Where are the daffodils you can plant?

A child who looks up to you? Do you say, “Gotta go to work?” or “I have time to play?”

A friend who feels lonely? Do you say, “I’ll call tomorrow?” or “I’ll stop by today?”

A person you’ve had a falling out with? Do you say, “I’ll forgive when he apologizes?” or “I’ll love that person as Jesus loves—and I’ll start today?”

Make sure what you do today makes today unforgettable for someone else—make it as striking as a daffodil garden.

How do you make every day a special occasion?

EMBRACE THE BEAUTY.

Eugene O’Kelly was your typical type-A personality.

He was chairman and CEO of KPMG, a giant accounting firm. He was tremendously energetic and ambitious. But suddenly, life as he knew it stopped. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer that would kill him in 100 days.

How did he cope? In the days following the diagnosis, he had to wrestle with his mortality. He had to re-evaluate his life. As he put it, “I had focused on building and planning for the future. Now I would have to learn the true value of the present.”

He decided to write a book about this experience: Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life. One of the things he talks about is the importance of “unwinding” relationships with people—having intentional final conversations with them, to bring closure.

One of the most important lessons he learned, though, was the importance of searching for what he called “perfect moments.” Those are the “times of lingering over a fine meal, enjoying a long and deep conversation, taking the time to soak up the beauty of nature over the course of an afternoon. I marveled at how many Perfect Moments I was having now,” he wrote.

What are the perfect moments in your life?

A trip to Spanky’s? Do you say, “I’ll go if there’s time after I mow the lawn?” or “The lawn is there tomorrow, and we’re together today!”

Sitting in comfortable silence on the front porch as crimson creeps across the sky at nightfall? Do you say, “Gotta go in—gotta get ready for tomorrow?” or “This is the stuff life’s made of?”, and you let the song of silence make music in your heart?

Each day presents you a menu of perfect moments. Which will you choose?

How do you make each day a special occasion?

FORGET BEING “PROPER” AND “PRACTICAL.”

A mother took her young son to a concert by the great pianist Paderewski. After they were seated, she spotted an old friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her. Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE."

When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that the child was missing. At that moment, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

As he played, Paderewski made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy's ear, "Don't quit." "Keep playing."

Then, leaning over, he reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child, and he added what’s called a running obbligato. Together, the old master and the young boy made a beautiful musical moment. All because that child didn’t know what was “proper” and “practical.” He only wanted to explore the moment.

Does being proper and practical hold you back today?

When faced with an opportunity that could open your eyes and bring a smile to your face, do you stop and say to yourself things like…

“What will they think if I do that?”

“I don’t have enough [time/money/whatever] to do that.”

“Hmmm. I’ve been burned once, I don’t want to be burned again.”

When someone is standing by a stoplight, with a ragged sign that says, “Homeless vet—please help”, what do you do? Run through all the reasons you shouldn’t give, like, “What will he do with that money?” Or do you simply hand him a one or a five or a ten, so you can see a smile and hear a, “God bless you?”

If we’re proper and practical, there’d be a lot of things we wouldn’t do. Then again, we wouldn’t have the Master coming up behind us, and making a symphony out of our meager.

Yes, that is the sound of the end of a perfect date.

But imagine that it’s also the sound of you stopping believing that your life lies ahead of you.

You’ve heard the line, “The best is yet to come.”

That’s not right. Jesus never said that. He said the kingdom is breaking into your life TODAY. Be rich to God TODAY, celebrating the treasures He lays before you TODAY.

The best is not yet to come. The best is here right now. You live like that, and then truly tomorrow will be even better than today—and hopefully, that will be hard for you to imagine!