A couple weeks ago my
little sister and I spent an evening watching Toronto’s National Ballet Company
perform Cinderella. It was exquisite. Everything about the evening was as close
to perfect as could be. My sister and I were together, the city was bustling with the energy of summer, inside
the theatre the orchestra’s music swelled and filled, and the dancers were
magical in their retelling of a timeless fairytale.
The closing curtain
fell and my sister and I stood to applaud. When a
performance is magnificent, when the dancers have left everything onstage, when
they’ve invited us into their world and we’ve let them into ours, there’s
almost a mystical connection. Though they danced for a full house, for an
audience of hundreds, they also danced just for us. It’s personal, somehow. My
sister and I clapped until our arms hurt and our hands ached.
As we left the theatre
and began walking through the downtown of our city, my sister looked at
me and said, “Why don’t we do stuff like
this more? We live in a city that has symphonies and operas, musicals and world
class ballet companies. If we were tourists, we’d do as much of this as we
could. It’s so easy to take it all for granted. We should start living as
though we don’t live here.”
We should start living as though we don’t live
here.
Those words have lingered
because my sister’s right. She’s right in the
literal sense that, as those who love the arts, we should enjoy what Toronto offers. But the truth of her words apply much more broadly, as
well. They’re words that are true about life.
We should live life as
though we’re visitors on this earth, as though we don’t live here, as though
our time here is short and precious. We should live like we’re tourists passing
through town because that is what we actually are.
Our time is finite. We
live short lives with eternity stretching endlessly on either side. We inhale.
We exhale. And then like a breath we’re gone.
If this is true, why
do we spend so much of our time doing things with little value? It’s a timeless
question with a variety of answers. But one answer is this: Maybe we squander
the gift of time because we fail to realize what a precious gift it actually is. Maybe
we need to start living as though we don’t actually live here.
We fail to do this whenever we wait till tomorrow to enjoy what He holds out to us today. Tomorrow I’ll change. Tomorrow I’ll slow down. Tomorrow I’ll choose
what is right. It’s a common refrain, isn’t it? We promise ourselves that
tomorrow we’ll live differently, enjoy deeply, or make the right choice.
But that’s not how
time works. Time is always in the present. Today. Right now. This day’s time is
a finite gift with infinite possibility because of limitless grace. The promise
of I’ll do it tomorrow is always elusive
because the only real choice for how we use our time is right now.
If I ever move away
from this city I call home, it would be so sad to look back and
see a pattern of missed opportunities and wasted time. I may never move from
Toronto, but I will surely move on from this life to the next. I want to live
on this earth—this day—as though I’m a tourist passing through town.
What does that mean,
though? What ways should I start living life as though I won’t live here
forever? What ways should I better use the finite time I’ve been given?
Should I read to my
children more? Should I be on Facebook less? Should I call my Dad and Mom more
often? Should I spend less time online and more time communing with my Creator?
Should I rest earlier each night and rise earlier each morning? Should I pray
longer and read God’s word more? Should I spend less time serving myself and
more time serving others? Should I go to the ballet with my little sister again
soon?
Though simplistic, in
some ways our lives can be reduced to fractions of time that, when pieced
together, create the whole. Right living is often not about creating new
categories or radically changing everything, but about changing the ratio—changing
certain things from less to more and other things from more to less.
It’s a timeless
lament, these thoughts about how quickly time passes and how to use the time we’re
given. But it’s pure grace when we feel how finite it all is because sometimes
it’s only then, only when we feel time quietly passing by, that we start living
life in light of eternity.
Because really, we’re
all just visitors passing through.
