“What is our . . crown in which we will glory?” 1 Thessalonians 2:19 NIV
“In reality, every day you are trading a priceless portion of your life for something.”
My thoughts today are about, “people who need people.”
Too many years ago, playing golf with my friend, Kenny, I made a “hole in one,” not by skill, but by random chance. I received a small trophy engraved with my name with the date and golf course. At the time, I golfed regularly and took some measure of pride with that simple, small trophy. It still sits on the window sill in my study at home, now dusty and rarely noticed.
Until that date seemed an embarrassingly long time ago, it sat not so discreetly on my desk at work for others to notice as well. Why was that marble and shiny, gold trophy – well shiny plastic, gold trophy, really – important to me for others to see?
If you want to know what is important to a person, consider the things with which they surround themselves. You will tend to accumulate stuff around you that represent things in which you take pride. For some people, it may be promotions, titles, pay raises or bank accounts and investments they collect, which feel very good but do not lastingly satisfy without more of the same and bigger than before.
A person might collect pictures with important people, autographs or awards – sports memorabilia – maybe books or art – maybe money, envied possessions – or expensive clothes and cars. In some way, things reflect a measure of what a person views as important. In reality, every day you are trading a priceless portion of your life for those things. What are the things that are all-important to you?
When you eventually feel the emptiness of what you gathered around you – to make you feel safe and secure, independent and important – you will discover it was not things at all. At some point in your life, hopefully not too late, you will realize that people, family and friends, will be what’s most important to you – the people you need as well as people who need you, the people who gave to you and the people to whom you gave, the people who love you as well as the people you loved.
Paul answers his own question about what’s really important, “What is our . . crown in which we will glory? . . Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy!” 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20 NIV. At the end of a wise person’s life, they will want their bedside surrounded by those important to them, people they invited to walk alongside them in life, not those who only worked for them.
As a pastor of nearly 46 years now, I have directed a lot of memorial services. Many of those were for individuals who during their lifetime probably never knew how influential they were to so very many others. And sadly, others who thought themselves important were kindly sheltered from seeing how few lives were really any different because of theirs.
Remember that little plastic golf trophy I mentioned – now dusty and rarely noticed on a window sill in my study, meaningless to anyone but me? I don’t want my life to be like that, and I hope that you don’t want yours to be like that either. Let’s be people who need people.
My prayer for you is: always know for certain what is of eternal importance in life.