Rushing or Living

I found myself following a snowplow home from the office the other day. I didn’t really mind, though. A Winter storm had dumped two inches of fresh snow on the road that morning and I was happy to have the truck clearing the highway ahead of me. It gave me a chance as well to enjoy the scenery as we moved along at twenty miles per hour. The snowy hillsides were so beautiful. They looked like a sparkling glimpse of Heaven. Seeing them filled my heart with such peace. I smiled as I drove along and thanked God for this glorious sight.

My mood, however, was not shared by the driver behind me. Just as we were nearing some curves the snowplow started to pull off to let us pass. The driver behind me didn’t even wait for it to get off the road before speeding past us both. His car slid in the snow and almost off the road as he went around us. As I watched him speed up again I said a quick prayer that God would keep him alive until he learned to slow down his car and his life.

It seems like far too many people in this world are like that driver. They seem in a constant rush to get somewhere. They rush to work. They rush home. They rush off to their vacations and then rush back. They rush through every part of their lives. No matter how much they rush, though, they never seem to get anywhere. That is because they mistake rushing for living.

God gave us these lives to learn in, to grow in, and to love in. Don’t rush through them. There is no place that you need to be except where you are right now. You were meant to experience life, to cherish life, and to enjoy life: not to hurry through life. Your life is meant to be a journey of love and happiness not a race to some unseen finish line. Take your time and rejoice in every second that you are given here. Then when you look back on the life you have lived you will see a million moments of love and not a blur of wasted years.

~ Joseph J. Mazzella ~