What We’re Missing by Dr. Juan Harrison
What We’re Missing
Most of us are impressed by famous or successful people. We can admire their accomplishments if they have any, but keep it all in perspective. They put their pants on one leg at a time like we do. If the Lord tarries they’ll end up like all us mortals on a slab. Somebody else will have to dress us or do whatever else the family requests to be done with the body. You can stick a few things in the casket like a favorite putter or an Aggie cap. Not much room there for gold bars and stacks of 20’s. Even less space is available in the urn.
It finally dawns on you that success and importance are relative terms. How do you summarize a life in thirty minutes to an hour with maybe a ten minute sendoff at the grave site. You shake hands, hug one another, and then start thinking about what we’ll do for supper as we head back toward home. Time stops for no man.
Sometimes the world reminds us of a person’s impact in a community as we see the name on a street sign or letters on a building or school. Maybe it’s a restaurant or a car dealership. Funny thing about time. Fewer and fewer people know about Hank’s Café or Ray’s BBQ as time passes and buildings get levelled or renamed.
When we consider what matters in life we probably are setting the bar too low. One good tornado or fire wipes out earthly remains of our life’s work here. That’s when we should realize what legacy and impact a person’s life consists of and how they affected the world around them. Road signs, buildings, and businesses come and go. People’s actions and impact on other lives can impact generations. People’s dedication to improving the quality of life around them can make lasting changes as buildings fall down.
I ran into an old student from junior high days at a restaurant recently. He reminded me how I taught him to love Robert Frost and “The Road Not Taken.” For others they’ve reminded me of Johnny Tremain as we learned about life at the beginning of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of a teenager.
I say this to encourage us and remind us folks who may not have been earth shakers and movers in this life that we’ve probably had more influence than we realize. We hope it was for the good. If we helped make anyone’s life better, lighter, richer in this short life, then maybe it wasn’t a wasted effort in the end. The Bible tells us the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It’s really hard to measure the effect of our lives while we’re living. Sometimes we have to look around when they’re gone and realize how we miss em. We don’t miss the things we all have to leave behind. We miss the way they made our lives richer.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
