The Big Picture

    

Well... I guess it took seeing my home college football team losing a must-win game last night, to cause me to take a step back (again) and really examine just how important I have made some non-essential things in my life.

Non-essential things, like football, and yes, even fly fishing.

It's hard to see how excessively caught up we can get in some of the things that we enjoy until something shakes us out of our stupor. Life's non-essentials—like football and fly fishing—have a strange way of invading too large a place in our hearts. They certainly do in mine.

But as I saw last night, even when my favorite football team loses a crucial game and any hope of playing in a national championship has been dashed to pieces—this ol' ball of dirt still keeps on a spinning.

Life goes on.

It's amazing to look at pictures of the earth from space.

The earth's circumference is over 24,000 miles. And yet, compared to the galaxy in which it resides, it is just a minute speck. Now consider the galaxy that we are in compared to the entire universe—which contains billions of galaxies—and the earth is not even equal to a microscopic speck of dust in size.

So, in its proper context, the utter insignificance of my favorite team losing a football game last night cannot even be measured. My hooking and losing the largest rainbow trout I have ever seen last summer is absolutely meaningless—in light of the true meaning of life.

Ten thousand years from now, as we are perpetually set in our eternal destination, we will not be looking back lamenting over our football team losing to an arch rival, or of the 'big one that got away.'

Am I happy that our team will not get a chance to play in a national championship game this year? Nope.

But as I have seen, I apparently needed something like last night's disappointment to shift my focus off of the insignificant things in life, and to turn and consider the true meaning of life, and weigh the actions, thoughts, and intentions of my heart—in light of eternity.

In the Bible it is written that everything we ever did, said and thought--has been recorded. And one day, it says "The books shall be opened" and we will have to give an account to Him who sits on the throne in Heaven.

Kinda puts it all in perspective, doesn't it?

I want my life to count for something.

On that Day, I want to be able to give an account of a life that was fully devoted to the Savior who freely offered me eternal life. I want to live a life that is focused on loving God and loving people, and is not bound up in the temporary trappings of this life that, in reality, are utterly insignificant and meaningless in light of eternity.

Lord, help me to see the big picture, and keep my heart fully focused on You, and on the things and people that really matter in this life.

Here is an appropriate verse from a favorite song of ours...

When we've been there 10,000 years,
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days,
To sing God's praise,
Than when we first begun.
My chains are gone,
I've been set free.
My God, my Savior,
Has ransomed me.
And like a flood,
His mercy reigns,
Unending love,
Amazing grace.

—God is Love and Love Never Fails.