My wife, Pandora, will tell you I live my life by ticking off lists. When I start a project I generate a list of next actions. When I plan a week I generate a list of possible actions. As I go through a day I check off completed actions and scan the list for the next action to engage. This is not all bad but I am learning it is an incomplete picture of how we should live.
I am learning to take the LONG VIEW. I do not mean thinking about what I want to accomplish or where I want to be in 20 years or some other number of years. Being a time traveler into the future in my head may have a place in our reflection time that is a helpful to visit but it is not what I mean.
The LONG VIEW for me is to recognize that the life I really want to live has to be the fruit of a daily process that is part of my life over the long haul. When I check items off my list they are deleted from my screen. They are done, finished, and I can erase them to make room for the next actions. But long view looks like choosing to walk each day holding hands with my best friend, Jesus. The LONG VIEW is to see a listening, engaging, trusting, and loving interaction with Jesus as the center of every day of my life and I would not ever want to complete it or check it off.
When I take the long view on any loving relationship it changes. Marriage, Parenting, Grand-parenting, and Friendships are made vibrant by viewing what is done today to be in relationship as deepening the connection we will enjoy tomorrow and all tomorrows God gives us. I do not want life to just be checking off my devotions or taking my wife out for dinner. Life has a center, a solid stable place to live out our life by being connected to Jesus at its center and constant reality.
How do you live with the LONG VIEW?
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