There are 2 ways to live life? Enjoy it or Endure it.

I think that when all circumstances internally and externally are ‘good’ I will enjoy life. The problem is I don’t ever seem to get my circumstances to cooperate. So I have a choice.

Enjoy what I can or Endure hoping for something to change that often doesn’t change.

Years ago I was giving a bath to one of my children when they were little. I was trying to get them done quicker. I kept telling them to hurry up. My child finally looked at me and say, “Why?”

I was surprised and immediately convicted. As I thought of some important response to give I realized I had no answer. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no meetings to attend. I realized I was so used to hurrying, so preoccupied with my agenda, so trapped in this rut of moving from one task to another I had stopped enjoying the present. I realized then I was always living for something in the future which never came. I didn’t realize that in front of me was an invitation to enjoy life. But I had turned bath time into something to endure!

I know there are many tasks we have to do but we can approach them with an attitude of enjoyment and not enduring which will make all the difference. Have you ever noticed how children just live life. They don’t think much about the future, they don’t worry, and they enjoy the small things. I need to do the same thing – but what comes natural to children takes much practice on my part. I am trying to learn to slow down and say, “I am going to enjoy the present.”

For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom….Matthew 18:2 (TMNT) 

I am finding when I slow down and pay attention to the present and ignore the future I enjoy life. Maybe this is how life in the Garden of Eden was?

Will you join and help me to enjoy life and not endure it till something else comes along that may never actually come along?