My Wasted Life

Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62).

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14).

I can't help but reflect (look back) and see my life as a giant mess. I think it's fair -that is one of the things it was certainly before I believed the Gospel.

It was also terribly obscene, unloving and deceitful. It was fleshy and lusty and full of abusive and dangerous and hurtful words and thoughts, and all those things that the prophets and Jesus would demonstrate, and insist, man's non-regenerative life, and heart, is. But more so than anything, overwhelmingly, it was utterly wasteful. All the selfishness and ambition and lust drowned out almost every conceivable opportunity to make a loving impact in this world. That was my life. It's hard not to lament about it.

But I can take comfort in Saul's life. Before he became the Apostle, Saul was as self-righteous as any person we can imagine. After his conversion, Paul lived the most impressive life of any fallen human. He realized he was "the worst sinner of all", yet he lived his words: "Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead."

In February my wife and I are expecting, thanks be to God, to welcome a new person into this world. The start of any new life is exceedingly exciting - it's an amazing gift, an opportunity.

Many of the things that will be strong influences to this newborn are of this world. Soon too this child will feel the consequences of Adam - the cravings of sin, the false hope of self-sustainment, the false promises of ambition and security, the self-centeredness we all strongly reek of.

Straining ahead for Paul meant spreading the Gospel of Grace no matter what the cost. For me it means being a gentle, guided hand to this child, the clear and strange beckoning of the Holy Spirit to good and great things. Things like mental and physical development, intellectual advancement, and future possibilities will dominate the conversations. I want God to bless me with a healthy baby. Sure. But the rest of those things I'm not concerned with - they aren't what matter. I'm concerned - no, consumed - with being a loving, steady presence in my child's life. I'm consumed with showing love that is comforting, eternal, and, most of all, unconditional.

I need to have this love because I want that baby to know that as deceitful and cunning and abusive and predatory this world is (and how he or she may very well become to some degree all those things), that all of those things are meaningless and temporal. I want that baby to know that how many times myself or his mother or everybody else in this world let him/her down, their is one that will never let them down. I want that baby to know that he/she could grow up to be happily married with a large family, to grow up and be a famous actress, or a professor, or an engineer, or a basketball player, or a congressman (or another basketball player turned congressman), to have all the money and prestige and "security" in the world - and yet they will realize that none of that matters. I want that baby to know that no matter how badly things ever got, no matter how much their dreams fade, it does not matter. I want that baby to know the only thing that matters is faith in a God of Love expressing itself through ridiculous, incalculable, unexpected, non-bias, non-prejudicial, always available, spontaneous, selfless love. I want that baby to know that God is Love, and we can love because He loved us first (1 John 4:19).

And back to me. Why? Because even though I am re-born I am still self-centered enough to have a blog and expect people to care about what I have to write. I'm still vulgar enough to use the F word three times consecutively because I made yet another mistake at work. Better yet, I'm still at work because I cover selfish ambition up with the notion that the advancement of my work is vitally important to the welfare of cancer patients. Meanwhile, I continually neglect my wife, God's ministry work I'm involved in (half-heartedly at times), my very talented mother's play on Friday night, and tens of things a week for late nights in the lab. Selfish ambition. Worldly lust for prestige. These are only the tip of the iceberg of the things i struggle with not daily, but minutely, that pull me away from living a life worthy of my calling. This is part of my humanity that will improve with time, but will always be very, very imperfect until the day I see Him (1 John 3:2).

I've wasted most of my life. It's gone. I continue to waste most of my life. But looking forward, not looking back, I earnestly try so share the free gift of love that I have been given with others. This is exactly what Jesus of Nazareth asks of His followers. And this is how the rest of my life is defined and directed. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. And since I live the life I live in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20), my primary responsibilty as a parent is helping show our child that there is a point to all that he or she will face in this world. There is a response to all that he or she will face in this world. And this response is accepting the unconditional love of our God, and then sharing it. And then, yielding to Christ's and Paul's advice, not looking back and lamenting on a life wasted. And for me, (most importantly of course), just like the love that I and my wife have received in our lives from family and friends that helped direct our lives toward the Love of God, my life post-wasted life is to show uncondional love to this child, in order that just once, before I go to be with Christ, I hear the desiring, believing whisper of this child as he or she gazes upward- "Abba", "Father" - and watch this child crawl, walk or run back into the loving arms of their one and only True, Holy, Eternal, and Loving Father.