Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about milestones. More honestly, though, I’ve been feeling quite accosted by them. Maybe it’s the stress of having turned 30—and of truly realizing for the very first time just how rapidly my life is flying by. I’ve come to a point where I’m beginning to feel a tremendous amount of pressure to attain certain things that didn’t seem so important not long ago. Should my husband and I buy a house soon? Should we have a baby? It used to seem like we had all the time in the world to figure things out, and now suddenly, it’s as though we’re racing the clock. A mortgage will take another 30 years to pay off—meaning that, if we literally bought a house within the next 24 hours, we’d be 60 years old by the time we finally finished paying for it. The typical retirement age is about 65, so we definitely don’t want to still be in debt by the time we get there! Likewise, a baby will take 18 years to raise—meaning that if we had one right this second, we’d be 49 years old by the time he or she graduated from high school. Not to mention, I’ve already heard plenty of things about how risky it can be for a woman to conceive past the age of 35—leaving us less than five years to safely consider this incredibly life-altering choice. Seriously? It was 2012 the last time I blinked!
Everywhere we turn, it seems like we are constantly striving to hit that next milestone and to attain the status that our world demands of us at every crucial fork in the road. Five years ago, it might have been marriage. Five years before that, it might have been a career. And we’ve just kept forging on—always goal-oriented and never truly satisfied with being exactly where we are. It’s just the way life works—but oh, is it ever exhausting! And when I stop to think about it, I understand how futile it is. I realize how much time I’ve spent wishing my life away and focusing so much of my attention on the pursuit of things that can never last. In that moment of truth, everything stops. And the only thing I want is to follow His voice.
Our Savior never troubled Himself with the pursuit of such milestones. Career? He was born into a caste system with His occupation chosen for Him before He could take His first steps. Marriage? Although this has been an issue of some debate, the general consensus seems to be that He never hit that target, either—which means the prospect of having children probably never entered His mind. And I’m fairly certain that He never owned property. He lived with His parents until He was thirty years old and basically spent the rest of His life being homeless. Yet, what a beautiful life it was—the most beautiful life that has ever been and ever will be.
I’m not saying it’s wrong for us to want all those other things. But why should we define the value our lives by whether or not we attain any of them? Why should we consider so essential that which He never experienced? Is it not enough just to live every day as He did—giving ourselves completely to God and being thankful for anything He chooses either to grant or deny us (in His timing, not ours)?
Above all things, He would have us remember that our lives are not our own. On the temple grounds in Jerusalem, He once rebuked our thoughtlessness this way: “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God” (Luke 20:25, NLT). In the context of our modern world, I can hear Him saying the exact same thing. No matter what anybody else says about what we should or shouldn’t be doing—about what’s important and what is not—His image is the only one we bear. We belong to Him. So, we shouldn’t consider ourselves at liberty to be led by anything else. We shouldn’t waste another precious moment.
Angela Love 