Jonathots Daily Blog
(2418)
Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody’s in a hurry to get there. Even the more bitter and pessimistic souls around us are not anxious to exchange “streets of crime” for “streets of gold.”
It is an open contradiction.
So what do we desire? A superficial form of immortality called longevity.
People work the first forty years of their lives to save up money, so they don’t have to work the last thirty-plus. Very few people ask the big question: how important is the quality of life?
So we create the populie. We applaud people who reach their ninety-fifth birthday without ever asking what is propping them up and whether they are dreading the daily pains of life.
Entertainment works both spectrums on this issue–sometimes portraying that “old is mold” and other times insisting that “old is gold.”
Religion extols the promise of long life because therein lies their piggy banks. Yes, it’s true–young people don’t give as much to the church as old folks.
Politics tries to garner a huge block of graying voters by playing to the fear of these souls, while reflecting back on the nostalgia of what they consider to be “better times.”
But if we’re looking for good life and all we get is time spent, then there’s the danger of ending up in a prison of disappointment.
For instance, if I drove over to a retirement home today at lunch hour, would I hear laughter, conversation, gaiety and feel energy in the room? Or would I encounter disgruntled human beings, who thought they were going to enjoy their “golden years,” and now find the whole experience sullied by too much concern, too much worry and too much pain.
There is a very simple three-part mission given to human beings, which, as long as we are actively and joyously pursuing, makes any age in life feel like twenty-two. You don’t have to go much further than the beginning of the Good Book to find it:
“Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the Earth.”
Can we all agree that when we stop being fruitful, what we feel is rotten?
The lack of multiplying subtracts purpose, and doesn’t add up in our thinking.
I, too, am getting older. So every single morning I get up and ask myself a question: am I still fruitful?
In other words, can I do what I’ve always done to some degree, and still do it well? Maybe there will be a drop-off due to age, but I still should be peddling towards the second mile.
Secondly, am I multiplying? Am I taking the energy I have for living, and helping others do what they do well?
One of the things you will discover as you get older is that your greatest value is not self-obsession, but rather, self-awareness in blessing those around you.
And finally, am I replenishing? This one is simple. Am I still giving more than I’m taking?
Each one of us has seasons of vulnerability, where we must draw from our account instead of making deposits. But if that season continues, the will to live slowly dies in our being.
It’s not about living long. It’s about living well.
Candidly, if I were told tomorrow that the next fifteen years of my life would be spent breathing, but my talents, joy, good attitude and spirituality would be dimmed in the process, I would choose to go.
I might be reluctant, but I would be fully aware that to be truly human requires fruitfulness, multiplication and replenishing the earth.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
The Sermon on the Mount in music and story. Click the mountain!
Click here to get info on the “Gospel According to Common Sense” Tour
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
Click here to listen to Spirited music
Jonathots Daily Blog 