Don't "What If?" Your Way Through Life
Don’t “What If?” Your way to the end of your life. For so many reasons.
First, what an absolutely miserable existence. To have something that you know you could do or wish you would do and to just never take the uncountable opportunities you had to just do it. If we’re honest with ourselves we choose not to do these things because of any number of reasons, and these things would all be a huge benefit to your life and the life of those around you, because our hearts would truly long for something if it did not have the possibility of great benefit to your world.
Second, imagine all of those things that people wished they would do. Now imagine if they would just do them. How much happier would everyone be? How much better would the world be because of our progress and discovery and benevolence toward each other? How much more safe and free and joyful would we all be if we knew and pursued those great dreams that lie within our hearts? And again, we speak only of those which lie at our deepest core as designed by God, the core that is beloved, safe, secure, confident, courageous, and benevolent. Those are the things we will recall on our deathbed and imagine how life could have been different, better.
Third, how much more would your personal life manifest the kingdom of God. In acting and creating we are bringing forth the realities of heaven that God has placed in our hearts. This takes great honesty with ourselves, because, even though we go to church on Sundays, if we live like hell we won’t reliably produce heaven. But if our true desire is to delight in God and remain in regular intimacy with Him, then much of the learning will happen as we create and labor. We didn’t have to be perfect before we came to the cross and received the fullness of God’s forgiveness and love, so why do we think we need to be perfect before we start creating and acting?
Fourth, I could not imagine a better way to kill the fear of man than to do the very thing that you think they will hate or judge or diminish or belittle you for. Imagine it is creating visual art. As long as you don’t create your art because of the opinions another has, you remain in the fear of man. But if we were to each push through that fear of man and create and act, regularly and authentically, we would break the power of opinion that we have agreed to because, not only are we going to get better at not believe the lie anymore, but we will be defiant of the critics, doing the very thing they say we shouldn’t.
Fifth, I believe the people who would benefit the most from our lives were we to live them to their fullest expression would be those whom we love and care about the most. I sent something I had written to a cousin when I first started writing, and she responded with, “You are such a good writer, I can’t believe I’ve never read anything you’ve written!” With an included expression of personal benefit from the subject matter. The answer to her shock was easy: “You’ve never read anything I’ve written because I’ve never written anything!” The people we love and care for are the ones we long to see happy, to thrive, to exercise their gifts and talents and delights. It pains us to see them self-limiting, and regularly wish they could only see what we see in them. Then they would be free to fly! If only we could believe this for ourselves.
There are plenty of other reasons that I wish I could communicate with full emotion and love on a page. But I don’t know that I need to. Maybe I just need to ask you to imagine the last day of your life, the last few minutes, and imagine what you had wished you’d cared about, who you’d listened to, how you spent your time, where you invested your heart, what you had wished you’d said and done. When you think of something that makes your heart swell and feel like bursting and sink at the very thought of having no time left to do it, act. Do everything it takes to do that thing.
Instead of asking “What If?” on my deathbed, as I looked back on my days I’d like to spontaneously say, “Wow.”