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Forever
There
are some people in the Christian community who believe
that only spiritual books, music, and movies can
give inspiration of a Godly nature. I am not one
of those people. Give me words that speak to my
heart and whatever genre thy happen to come from,
if they have a message, I recognize them as God-given.
Therefore, my spiritual quests sometimes don't look
very spiritual. I regularly listen to a variety
of music for example. Contemporary Christian, old-style
gospel, soft rock, country - they seem to run in
cycles through my life. And often the non-Christian
music, or maybe more specifically, the music that
was written to be released not just to Christians
often speak to me in ways that are more subtle but
just as profound as those stamped "Christian".
A recent
example of this in my life has been the music of
Keith Urban. Now there are a lot of things I like
about his music, starting with the mesmerizing way
he can play a guitar. His life too is inspiring
to me. He obviously had a God-given dream as well
as God-given talent, but while he focused on himself,
his life went downhill. When he finally realized
how far out of control he was, he made a radical
change in his life and reoriented his focus.
That
change is evident in his music. Not because he changed
genres, but because of the way he now writes the
songs that he sings.
Take,
for example, one of my favorite parts from his most
recent hit, "Days Go By". It goes like
this:
"We
think about tomorrow then it slips away.
We talk about forever, but we've only got today."
Great
advice and insights from a "secular" music
maker. How many times do we as Christians put off
loving on Tuesday because it's not Sunday? It's
as if we have only a limited amount of love, and
we don't want to use it up too quickly.
We have great intentions of what we will do tomorrow
to help, or next week to give, or next year to be.
And while we plan for tomorrow, next week and next
year, we miss the chance to help, to give, and to
be right now.
So don't think about tomorrow as today slips away.
Use today, right now, this minute, and forever will
take care of itself.
As the end of "Days Go By" says about
our days,
"Take 'em by the hand, yours and mine.
Take 'em by the hand and live your life
Take 'em by the hand, don't let 'em all fly by."
If your
focus is on tomorrow, your chances to help, to love,
to give will fly by. Live right now. Love right
now. Help right now. Give right now, and your forever
will not slip away.
by:
Staci Stallings
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