Don’t Waste Your Life

March 28, 2014
by Rodney Olsen
1 Comment

shells

I read John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life some time back and was struck by the following illustration of what he considered to be a wasted life.

“I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.”

At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells.

Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life.”

When I finally ‘retire’ I want to continue to contribute to building a kingdom that will last forever. That’s just what Bob and Christine are doing. Take five minutes to watch the video and let them inspire you.

You might not be able to commit all your time and resources in the way that Bob and Christine are doing but maybe you could consider sponsoring a child through Compassion.

You may even decide that you’d like to do a little more and help organise a Compassion Sunday for your church.

Whatever you do, don’t waste your life.



Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading Don’t Waste Your Life? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.

Driven to Distraction

March 12, 2014
by Rodney Olsen
3 Comments

mirror

While many think it was something said by James Dean, “Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse.” is actually a line from the 1949 Humphrey Bogart film, Knock On Any Door. And for a bonus point, the actor who said it was John Derek.

I spotted a young lady trying to live out that ‘wisdom’ yesterday morning on the freeway.

It was bumper to bumper and traffic was crawling along, so the woman in the Ford Focus in front of me thought that it was a good time to multi-task. At first her head started bobbing up and down every few seconds, the way that heads do when someone is texting from the driver’s seat.

Next came the hair and make up routine.

Her left hand wrenched the rear-view mirror down. Why worry about what other traffic may be on the road when there’s lipstick to apply. For the next few kilometres it was all about applying a face full of make up and doing a lot of work on her hair. Most of the time this meant that she was travelling on a stop start freeway without her hands on the wheel. I imagine she wanted to look good in the body bag.

You have one job.

Here’s the thing. If you’re driving …. you’re driving. That’s it. I know that we talk about multi-tasking and I know that women are better at it than men, I get that, but when you are behind the wheel you need to be totally absorbed in the driving process and that’s all.

Driving is a matter of life or death.

I don’t care how well you think you drive and how well you think you can multi-task, distracted drivers kill. I don’t care if it’s a boring drive and you think you can manage a few things at once, just do one thing, drive. If you’re so busy that you ‘need’ to do other things while behind the wheel, re-evaluate your schedule. Cancel or postpone something. Learn to say no to people who require that you multi-task while driving. Your life may well depend on it.

Someone else’s life might depend on it too.

Are you prepared to be the one to break the news to the family of the driver of the other car that someone they love isn’t coming home? Do you think they’re going to accept your excuse that their mother, father, child is dead because you had to reply to a text message about where you’re meeting for coffee? Do you think it’ll ease their pain knowing that at the time of impact you were looking fabulous because you’d just finished doing your make up?

I know that this post might seem a little over the top and melodramatic, but I suspect it doesn’t even begin to go far enough for the many, many people who have lost someone to driver distraction.

Please hear one thing. When you’re on the road …. just concentrate on that one thing …. driving.

What’s the dumbest thing you’ve seen someone do behind the wheel?



Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading Driven to Distraction? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.

How Embarrassing

March 5, 2014
by Rodney Olsen
4 Comments

cds

I posted on Facebook a few days ago that I was listening to Air Supply’s Greatest Hits. This immediately split people into two groups; those who thought it was a great musical choice and those who ridiculed my Monday afternoon listening. One person even asked if I had any Barry Manilow CDs in my collection. As a matter of fact I do have one.

My musical tastes are eclectic to say the least. If you put my iPod onto shuffle you would be likely to hear everything from Lorde to Alicia Keys, Electric Guest, Eliza Doolittle, The Whitlams, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Jim Croce, a fair amount of Amy Winehouse through to plenty of Regina Spektor and you’re very likely to hear lots of Diana Krall. There’ll also be The Jam, The Clash, The Who, The Band, The Beatles, Boz Scaggs, Neil Diamond, Hoodoo Gurus, Joe Jackson and far too many others to mention. You might say I’ve got Everything But the Girl … and you’d be right. I’m a big fan of their music.

I’d love to know what your ‘guilty musical pleasures’ are. What are the albums you’re happy to hear but that others find a little embarrassing? You can see a few of mine above. As well as Air Supply and Barry Manilow there’s Bing Crosby, Brenda Lee and countrier than country Dwight Yoakam. I’m sure if you spent a while looking through my whole collection you’d find others that’d make you groan.

What music do you own and listen to that others would consider ‘totally uncool’?



Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading How Embarrassing? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.