Have you ever given any thought to the greatest moment of your life?
I can think of a whole bunch of them, actually. Graduation days, my wedding day, the day my children were born, all of these days were pretty awesome.
But, for some reason this morning I am kind of homesick for the Florida Straits and some Gulf Stream waters.
And, I am homesick for a fishing pole in my hand; and, I ache to be so far out at sea that I can’t see any land.
So, maybe that’s why an old Jimmy Buffett tune started playing in my head:
I bought a cheap watch from a crazy man
Floating down Canal.
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands
It always just says now.
Now you may be thinking that I was had
But this watch is never wrong
And If I have trouble the warranty said
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On
The title of that song is, Breathe In, Breathe Out (move on). Buffett is singing about Hurricane Katrina and the need for all of us to focus our attention on now.
So, what was the greatest moment of your life? Can’t we make a convincing argument that now is the greatest moment?
And, as Buffett sings, this watch is never wrong! So now must be right!
All we have is now. And, if we live in the past, we lose life. If we live in the future, we lose life.
Now is what God has given to us.
In addition to being a pretty good singer and song writer, Jimmy Buffett writes some fairly good novels too. In his #1 Bestseller A Salty Piece of Land, he wrote:
“Life is, and always has been a struggle.
The fishing pole bends heavier for some than others, and nobody has yet to figure out why—just as you never know, when you make a cast, if what attacks your bait is a finger-size baby mangrove snapper or a tiger shark that can turn you into bait.
Life is like a fish on the line. When it’s there, you feel it. You fight it. You gain line. You lose line. But if that line suddenly snaps, or the pole breaks, or a thousand other problems occur that fishermen use as excuses, when the tension is gone, you feel it even more.”
That particular passage in Buffett’s book just appealed to me. I love to fish in the Gulf Stream so I understand the metaphor.
When you are out at sea off Marathon, Florida with your line in the water the wind in your face and the sun at your back, life is good. The boat slips through the water so effortlessly you begin to think you own the world.
All of that changes in an explosive fraction of a second. That dolphin hits!
That pole bends like rubber! And, you feel like you are in a fight for your life!
It can actually feel frightening.
If you are strapped in with the pole and the reel begins to sing as the dolphin overpowers the drag, that adrenalin starts pumping and for a moment you wonder if the fish might just win that battle and pull you slap out of the boat!
The fish actually knows it is in a fight for its life; and, it gives all it has to pull you into the water.
What never ceases to amaze me is when the dolphin hits, the fishing can go from placid to nuclear in a millisecond.
I have felt my adrenaline go from lazy days sittin’ on the front porch swing mode to explosion in less time than a thought.
Regular life can be like that too. Life is filled with uncertainty and some folks pole’s do bend heavier than other.
Trouble can roll in quick and seem to strike out of nowhere.
Even so, we don’t stop fishing. The reels whines and you just keep cranking with everything you’ve got!
And, you are never more fully alive than now!
When it’s all over and the tension is gone and that fish is lying in the floor of your boat, you feel it even more. Now is the best time of your life!
Have you ever wondered what kind of God could have created and designed us for such extremes? How about God Almighty who wants us to really live?
There are times when I believe God shoves us out of our comfort zones because there is more life out there and God can be very gaudy!
God truly wants us to see all there is! God wants to show off!
And, God will not rest until those most dear to God’s heart has seen it all!
A German dude a lot smarter than I am (Jurgen Moltmann) said that God made all of creation just for us! And, we are the apple of God’s eye!
God has given us now. Maybe today is a good day to become a wee bit more creative with what we do with it.
And, I am guessing that if we focus more on now than we do on later, then life will most certainly feel richer.
I will leave you with a quote from the old Jesuit Priest Jean Pierre de Caussade,:
“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams, but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your faith and love. To discover God in the smallest and most ordinary things, as well as in the greatest, is to possess a rare and sublime faith.”