Tony Campolo posed a question all should answer.
While teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, he asked a sleepy student, “Young man, how long have you lived?” The boy quickly spit out his age.
“No, no, no. That’s how long your heart has pumped blood. That’s not how long you lived,” replied Campolo.
He then told of a time as a 4th-grade student in 1944. He went to the Empire State Building on a school field trip. The elevator took him to the observation deck of the then tallest building in the world. It overlooked all that he could see.
He stood still. Reflecting on that moment, he told the students, “In one mystical, magical moment I took in the city. If I live a million years, that moment will still be part of my consciousness, because I was fully alive when I lived it.”
He returned to the student. “Now, let me ask you again. How long have you lived?”
The student hung his head and said, “When you say it that way, maybe an hour, maybe a minute, maybe two minutes.”
We send so much time focused on a Facebook post or the worries of the day. We are distracted.
The wise man said:
Let your eyes look straight ahead;
fix your gaze directly before you.
Give careful thought to the paths for your feet
and be steadfast in all your ways.
Do not turn to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil. (Proverbs 4:25-27)
When we focus on living to please the Lord, we find out when live as we never have before. It is that day that you start living.
Now, how long have you lived?
-Robert G. Taylor-
