Now What?

Now what?  Two words that carry more meaning than we truly want to acknowledge.  Have you ever spent weeks, months or even years to get to a goal or event? Do any of the examples below resonate with you?

Christmas – We spend months finding the right gifts for people.  Then we cook for hours when it only takes minutes to eat.

Vacation – We meticulously spend hours trying to prepare for a trip.  We triple check reservations, what we have packed and all of the agenda makes sense.

Conference – We schedule a conference a few months out and try to plan how we will get the most out of it, where we will eat and if there will be an opportunity to sight see while we are there.

Mission Trip – We plan for months the work to get done, people to see and arrangements for eating and sleeping.  We triple check what we need to bring and the agenda is ready to go.

Promotion – We spend time learning, training and growing while advancing in our career year over year and then we receive the promotion we always wanted.  Years have went into this with many sacrifices to make this happen.

Diagnosis – Our friend receives a bad diagnosis at the doctor and then loses their fight to the illness.  After battling and being in remission but then the fight is over after the illness comes back.

You see, these various events all have something in common. The energy that goes into planning, the eagerness and anticipation of the final outcome manipulates a lot of our time but once it is over, we ask, “Now What.” What will fill the new void of not having that event to plan anymore? Will the momentum continue to your personal and spiritual life, leading you closer to Christ and His plans for you? Or will the event or period of our life come and go as if it were all for nothing?

There is no greater display of this than Easter. During Lent, we spend over 40 days focusing on how we can improve our personal and spiritual life by giving up something during this time to help focus ourselves on living a life through Jesus. During these 40 days we are anticipating the humiliating death of Christ and His resurrection by focusing on our relationship with the Lord. When Good Friday arrives, we are prone to thinking “Only two more days and I can do “(fill in the blank of what was sacrificed).” On Easter Sunday, we celebrate triumph and victory over death.  We dress up and gather with friends and family to celebrate the resurrection and what it means for people around the world.  What happens once we are able to eat that fast food, drink the coke or start on social media again?

What we see next is what happens with other events, such build up, work, planning, and ends with us asking, “Now what?”. The changed habit that was planned for during Lent to grow closer to Christ goes back to the way it has always been, but that is not the purpose of the Lenten season. Christ wants us to take this time as a refresher, to grow closer to him and to change our daily way that reflects His love for us and others.  He does not want us to utilize this time planning for another event just to let it go and move on once it is over.  Every moment matters before and after.

Life is not over because Easter is over, the vacation we went on is done or something we have worked on for so long has finally happened.  Unfortunately, life may still be hard, situations may not meet your timing or the result of something was not what you wanted. 

“Now what?” must not be the status quo.  We must not turn away from taking on challenges, but rather keep working and moving forward.  A large event may happen with all of the hoopla before, but do not let it happen and miss the main point.  Easter happened so we can live a life filled with hope.  Instead of, “Now what?” being a question, lets make it an action to do more.  Use it to fulfill our purpose to live out our life to bring hope to those around us every day.

XOXO

Mark and Megan