What's Really Important

I’ve been thinking lately about how much importance we…okay, maybe it’s just me…put on things that really don’t matter. I mean, in the very moment we are experiencing our “crisis” we think everything else doesn’t matter.

Sometimes my focus is so much on getting somewhere on time, following my schedule or checking off the things on my to-do-list that I lose sight of the truly important stuff.

Yesterday (Friday) I hardly got any work done. I tried to keep the coverage of what was happening in Japan in the background while I worked but I couldn’t. I kept stopping to turn the volume up so I could hear what they were saying. My eyes watered when I saw the complete devastation. My heart pounded as I waited for the tsunami to make its way to the United States. And I prayed.

So much devastation, so much chaos in the world and it’s happening not just far away but right here in my own state. It’s so easy to lose sight of the truly important stuff.

When my little world gets turned upside down because traffic isn’t moving fast enough, the kids aren’t responding the way I would like, the meat isn’t thawed or I didn’t get my 8 hours of sleep last night…wow, amazing how in the very moment it seems so important.

I’m reminded of James 4:14, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” Think about it. Every moment in our lives is really just that, a vapor. Here one moment, gone the next.

I have to ask myself…and perhaps you need to ask yourself…are the things I get worked up about or I consider to be a “crisis” really just that? Or is every moment, every inconvenience, every interruption, every messed up plan I have really nothing more than just a vapor…here one moment and gone the next?

We don’t know how many years, months, days or even hours we have left here on earth. We don’t know what the future holds or what tomorrow will bring. But I do know this, I need to focus on the truly important stuff and let go of the rest.