Kara Annette McAbee
Tar Heel Born & Bred
1971 - ?
(***Confession---this blog post has yet to be edited. I've got a burden to share these words right now, so I'm posting without editing....anything spelled incorrectly, poor grammar, etc. will be corrected when I get back to it tomorrow! I hope you'll overlook anything like that, and just hear my heart. Thanks. Kara)
A lot of life goes on between the dash. Laughter. Tears. Joy. Sorrows. Giggling and cooing. Toddling around. First words. First loves. First heartbreaks. Good decisions. Poor decisions. Regrets. Health battles. Losing loved ones. Grief. Friends. Loves lost. Rejections.
I suppose that it's up to each of us how we choose to live our own dash. Will we become world famous leaders, poets, mine workers, secretaries, mommies, friends, lovers, athletes, etc.?
I've spent many a year, and I would suspect that most of us do, wasting the time that my dash represents. In recent weeks, however, I've decided to take better stock of how I'm using my dash. In my favorite poem, "Desiderata", there's a line that says we should "take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth."
In the Bible, there was another person who reflected back on the folly of his youth and much of his life, King Solomon. Solomon, as you may recall, was the son of King David. He was wealthy beyond compare. He had multiple wives and concubines. Servants galore. Palaces. Gold. Silver. Livestock. Land. All the things that money (and wars) could afford a king. Yet Solomon, reknown for his wisdom recorded in Proverbs searched over his vast kingdom and all that he had amassed, and in the book of Ecclesiastes, he records the following:
"Smoke, nothing but smoke. There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke. What's there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone? One generation goes its way, the next one arrives, but nothing changes—it's business as usual for old planet earth. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, then does it again, and again—the same old round. The wind blows south, the wind blows north. Around and around and around it blows, blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind. Everything's boring, utterly boring—no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear. What was will be again, what happened will happen again. There's nothing new on this earth. Year after year it's the same old thing. Does someone call out, "Hey, this is new"? Don't get excited—it's the same old story. Nobody remembers what happened yesterday. And the things that will happen tomorrow? Nobody'll remember them either. Don't count on being remembered." (The Message)
Sounds like Solomon had a serious case of the "poor pitiful me's". (Luckily they make medicines for people with these kinds of moods now!) Solomon is basically saying that, despite all he had accomplished through the course of his life, it was all pretty much meaningless. What he was failing to take into consideration was the power and the joy in a life fulfilled by allowing God to bring you to a full awakening of all we are meant to be in Him.
Serving others, giving back to others, encouraging them, listening to them, providing counsel, etc. when you are not operating out of the overflow of the Holy Spirit is nothing but smoke. Our efforts are in vain, and we are not effective in our attempts to minister to those around us. If we are to be light to this hurting world, we must take seriously our own individual spiritual growth and development.
How do we do this? I believe the secret is found in cultivating a lifestyle of worship. Worship is something we've distorted and shrunk to fit into our "one size fits all" society. Most people would define worship as singing in church to a particular style of music. After all, it carries the name "praise and worship", so that must be it, right? Well, yes and no. Of course, singing is a part of worship, as long as it is done in spirit and truth, with the right motives. It's certainly not about "flipping on a switch" on Sunday morning, checking in at church with all our friends, saying a prayer, dropping some money in the offering plate and then running out at 11:58 to get to the buffet line before the Baptists do.
Worship is, and should be, a lifestyle. It's what I do. It's who I am. It consumes me. When I wake up in the morning, I'm already conversing with God, because He wakes me with a song already in my mind. I welcome the morning by saying "good morning" to Him, and I begin to ask Him to be with me throughout the day. My morning devotions, prayer and quiet time alone with Him are the sweetest parts of my day. I never say "Amen" during a prayer, because I don't believe that prayer should ever stop. He's the dearest, most trusted friend I have, or ever will have, so why would I need to put an end to it? As I'm driving, I'm singing, thanking Him for His creation, asking Him to bless the person who almost totalled my car (yes, that was yesterday), etc. At work, I'm working for Him, even though I'm in a secular job. I know that what I'm doing is blessing Him because I'm focusing on being a blessing to my co-workers and the people I work for.
A lifestyle of worship is not difficult. It's simply a matter of being present. Present in the moment so that you can recognize the people who God places in your path. Present so that you can give back to Him, and present so that He can constantly be refilling your earthly vessel. Then, out of the overflow, we can give to others. It's really that simple.
In looking back over the course of my life, I pray that I will be able to come to a different conclusion than did Solomon. I pray that my dash will be far from smoke. I hope that I've been able (and will continue to be able) to make an eternal difference in the lives of many of the people I've met along this journey home.
Making Heaven a Bit More Crowded,
Kara
