The Good Ol' Days

Yesterday my best friend from high school called to let me know that one of our friends growing up was moving in to house down the street from my house. What a coincidence! We talked for close to 10 minutes, and this discussion brought back a flurry of stories and adventures of the "goold ol' days." High school was an amazing time for me, as it was for most people. I have numerous stories during this period of my life. Most of them absolutely hillarious, some extremely dangerous, and a few just flat out heart breaking.

This same evening, Michelle and I hosted some teens from church at our house. This hosting has become somewhat of a tradition with them, as well as with us. We love sitting around with them, listening to them talk about their "good ol' days". They sometimes ask about our experiences in high school, and we share when appropriate. For the most part, however, Michelle and I really try to limit talking about our life and just listening to them. We do our best to make this particular evening about them.

Last night was real interesting, as this will be the last "dinner" that we will host for these guys before they go off to college. At one point it kind of hit them all at the same time that this would be the case. "This is our last senior dinner at the Wilkins' house", one of them said with a really big frown. However, minutes later they were laughing about what one of them did a few months ago. Moments later, the drama had passed, and they were discussing normal topics again: movies, soon to be roommates, schedules, dating, etc.

A wise man told me a long time ago that if you believe the best of days of your life are behind you, then you are not living. The rock band, Green Day has a awesome song entitled, "These are the best Days of Your Life". The problem is, if the best days of our lives are behind us, what does that say about our relationship with Jesus? We have to keep living each day as "as if it was our last". We have to be careful and not get legalistic with this phrase. Yes, Jesus is coming back and we don't know when. The bible teaches us to be ready at any moment. But there is a huge difference between living a life out of fear of being punished, and living a life trying to experience everything that God created. God's intent of telling us to be ready was not for us to focus on every rule and law that He mentions in the bible. His intent was not for us to sacrifice experiencing adventures, so that we can complete a check list of Christian rules and regulations. Christianity is not a checklist, and if we live our life that way, we are missing the point of being a Christian. There are things we should and should not do, and the bible is very clear about these things. But the bible is just as clear about the fact that we should live our life out of gratitude for what God did so that everyone has a chance to be saved. I think we should ask ourselves questions like, "is Jesus a part of my life today? Am I happier (content) now than a few years ago? If I were to live life to the fullest, what would it look like? Who would be involved?

That same wise man told me that the best way to live my life is as if your best days were before you. I am still not real sure how to do that, but I think I am getting better. My son asked me this weekend where we were going to ski this year. So this morning, I find myself counting up my vacation days....