Carpe Diem! Wait...what?!?

I have struggled all week, trying to decide what to write about on the blog this week. I’ve tried two different topics, but neither seemed appropriate to the beginning of a new year. Then, at about 4 o’clock this morning, as I was holding my sick Monkey, I started thinking about the song I was planning on singing this Sunday in church. It’s one of my husband’s and mine favorite songs, and even though it’s a little long, I’ve sung it so often that even my youngest is starting to pick up on the words. I’m not sure Monkey will be well enough by tomorrow to go to church, so I decided to record myself singing it so that I can share it with all of you. I hope you enjoy it!

I’ve titled this blog “Carpe Diem”—it comes from the name of this song. “Carpe diem” is Latin for “Seize the day”, and that’s exactly what I wanted to tell you today. Life is full of opportunities, choices, decisions that, sometimes, can affect the entire course of our lives. Sometimes when we’re faced with those decisions, we are able to recognize the importance of the moment and choose wisely, but more often, it seems that we are at least partially unaware of the potentially life-altering consequences of our choices and make those choices based on peer pressure, emotion or other external or internal stimuli. It is only later, after the consequences of our decision—good or bad—have occurred that we tend to realize the gravity of that particular decision.

I recently read a book where the main character, Ilya, endured great trial and hardship to rescue the girl of his dreams from the clutches of an evil sorcerer (it was The Firebird by Mercedes Lackey). He was helped along the way by the brave and beautiful firebird, who can take the form of a beautiful girl at will. Only after defeating the sorcerer and rescuing the beautiful girl and her companions did Ilya find out the true nature of the girl he thought he was in love with—shallow, vain and fickle—but he had already pledged to marry her and refused to go back on his word and shame her. On his wedding day, he stumbled across her and his brother in bed together and was overjoyed (though he had to pretend to anger) that he now had an honorable reason to end the engagement and find the girl he really loved, the firebird.

What haunts me about that story—what I keep thinking about—is the choice that Tatiana, the girl he had rescued, made that day and the horrible consequences for her. Ilya was kind, handsome, brave, clever, courteous to women, and refused to take advantage of his new fiancée, respecting her enough to wait until their marriage to engage in intercourse. His brother, on the other hand, was shown throughout the book to be brutish, rather slow, but cunning when it suited him, a womanizer and abusive to others. As Ilya rode away from Tatiana, he predicted that Pietor would regularly cheat on her and beat her when she displeased him, but she had made her choice and was stuck with it; he wasn’t going to rescue her again when he didn’t love her and she had so betrayed him. I can’t help thinking of how many people have made similar choices in life, giving in to momentary lusts and fleshly desires, only to find out afterward what terrible consequences hinged on that one decision!

That’s the thing about choices—they can seem so innocent on the surface, but, as Proverbs 22:3 says, “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty” (NIV). The people in the song “Seize the Day” each had goals and dreams for their lives, and, depending on their choices, were able to complete those goals or lost them forever. Everybody has a dream, a desire, a vision for how they want their life to go, but if we don’t make careful choices, we risk wasting the short time we have on earth and losing the opportunities that are presented to us. Life is full of distractions, time-wasters, things that can hinder or even halt the progress of our goals if we are not careful, so it behooves us to be wise.

How do we learn wisdom? Well, there are only two ways that I know of: either by learning the hard, painful way through bad decisions or by learning from the experience of others and, most especially, by learning from the Bible, God’s Word and our official human being manual, how best to live our lives. After all, He made us, so He knows best what it takes to live a productive, happy life. Unfortunately, too often we human beings are too stubborn and prideful to admit that we might not actually know what we are doing and need instruction; like Cain, Abel’s brother, we don’t want to listen to reason (Genesis 4:1-16), and instead choose to do things in the way we think best, regardless of the consequences. That didn’t work out so well for Cain, and it doesn’t work out so well for the rest of us either!

Life is full of choices; as we start this new year, I want to challenge you and me to make wise choices, using God’s Word for guidance, choices that will result in happier, healthier families and personal growth and development for ourselves. And I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to challenge anyone reading this who does not have a personal relationship with Jesus to seek one immediately. You can’t live your life to its fullest potential if you are not living it on God’s terms. And His terms are simple: We have to recognize the danger and death that our inborn sinful nature brings us, confess it and ask for His forgiveness—because ultimately every wrong that we do in life is first and foremost against God and His holiness—and then accept the perfect sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross in our place and ask Him to come live in our hearts, making us a new creature, inside and out.

 When our sin nature has been crucified with Christ and the new spirit that He puts in us starts working on our earthly bodies and desires, we are empowered to make the right decisions and so use the time that He gives us on earth wisely. Let’s not lose any more God-given opportunities presented to us, but instead seize them when they are offered and make the most of the potential that God has gifted each of us with for His honor and His glory. Carpe diem!