Participants:
Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000006S
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00:01 - You know, I don't know how many times
00:02 I've heard somebody say, "Man, if I'd only known 00:04 "it was gonna be like this, I never would've started. 00:07 "If I'd only known that maintaining a marriage would prove 00:10 "to be this hard," or "If I'd only known 00:12 "that raising kids would be this much of a challenge. 00:15 "If I'd only known that getting older would hurt this much, 00:18 "I don't know if I ever would've started." 00:21 That is the voice of regret. 00:23 And it happens because what you don't really understand 00:26 when you're at the starting line of your life is 00:30 that there's no way to predict what the journey ahead 00:33 is actually gonna look like. 00:34 And you have no idea when you're gonna cross the finish line 00:37 or what you're gonna look like when you get there. 00:41 Today on "Authentic," learning how to live your life 00:44 with no regrets. 00:46 [dramatic music] 01:07 Take a few minutes off from your life with me today 01:09 and let's go back and just visit your childhood. 01:12 If you happen to be from my generation 01:14 or even a little older than that, 01:16 you've seen a lot of change in a very short space of time. 01:20 I actually grew up in a world 01:21 where I walked to school unattended, 01:23 if you can imagine that. 01:25 And the technology they had for my education, 01:27 it was a mimeograph machine and a filmstrip projector. 01:31 In fact, I can still hear the rhythmic sound 01:34 of test papers being reproduced on a Gestetner 01:37 in the teacher's lounge. 01:39 This is the technology that connected my generation 01:42 to the 19th century. 01:44 And if they dropped the copies on your desk soon enough, 01:47 man, you could still smell the copying fluid. 01:50 I still think that's one of the nicest smells 01:52 in the whole world. 01:54 The teachers all had dirty white smudges 01:56 on their pants pockets, because, well, 01:58 they were still using chalkboards, 02:00 another primitive technology. 02:02 And that chalk dust would get all over their hands, 02:05 and so it would get all over their clothes. 02:07 And there was always some poor kid outside 02:10 after school standing in a cloud of chalk dust, 02:13 because it was his job to clap the brushes together 02:16 to make them clean again for tomorrow. 02:18 Maybe some of you remember being sent up to the board 02:20 to demonstrate a math problem for the whole class, 02:24 and you had to dig around in all those little chalk nubs 02:27 sitting in the aluminum tray. 02:29 And I don't know if this ever happened to you, 02:31 but sometimes I would actually get a shiver down my spine 02:34 as I pulled one of those dry, tiny stubs 02:36 across a dry green board, and it would chatter for a second, 02:42 or even, ugh, make a squeaking sound. 02:46 Back then, when you wanted to make a phone call, 02:48 you had to use this clunky machine 02:50 you rented from the phone company. 02:53 And it either sat on the kitchen counter 02:54 or it was mounted to the wall. 02:57 And if you wanted any privacy, 02:59 you had to install a 40-foot coiled-up cord 03:02 that always got tangled and kinked, 03:04 so that you could walk to the next room 03:06 in order that nobody else could hear your conversation. 03:10 If you were making a long distance call, 03:12 especially to another country, 03:13 well, you had to wait until 11 p.m., 03:16 because that's when the rates would suddenly drop, 03:19 and you wouldn't break the bank by talking to somebody 03:21 for 10 or 15 minutes. 03:23 In fact, back then, we still had family living 03:26 in the old country in Europe. 03:28 And they still used telegrams when I was a kid 03:31 to send the occasional message, 03:33 because it was cheaper than using the phone. 03:37 And I don't even know if telegrams still exist. 03:40 Now, I'm sure when I was a kid, 03:43 cable TV must have existed in a few large urban places. 03:47 I don't know, but I know we sure didn't have it, 03:49 not in my little town. 03:51 We had black and white TVs with rabbit ear antennas 03:55 that sometimes had foil wrapped around them 03:58 or if one of them got broken 04:00 and had a coat hanger jammed in the end. 04:02 Rich people had 20-inch TVs. 04:06 Lots of people had much smaller screens than that 04:08 like 13 inches. 04:10 And the TV stations, we only had two, 04:14 and they would play the national anthem at midnight 04:17 and then they would actually shut off until morning, 04:20 putting up color bars for the whole night. 04:23 Of course, we also had radio, 04:25 which was kind of like our version of the internet 04:28 back in the day, I guess. 04:29 Back where I lived, we got two, maybe three stations 04:33 on the AM dial, except in the winter, 04:37 when occasionally we'd suddenly get 04:39 these long-distance signals bouncing in the town 04:41 for just a few hours. 04:43 And as a kid, I had this little red transistor AM radio. 04:47 And I'd crawl into bed and scan the dial for something new, 04:50 something from some other part of the world 04:51 I could listen to. 04:52 And because I wasn't supposed to be listening 04:55 to the radio after bedtime, well, I would cheat. 04:58 I would use a little twisted mono earpiece, 05:01 no stereo, a mono earpiece that you could plug 05:04 into the back of the radio. 05:05 And I'd crawl under the blankets, 05:07 and I would listen privately. 05:09 My generation, we had no air conditioning, 05:12 not in the house, and certainly not in the car. 05:15 So, in the summertime my brothers and I would sit 05:17 in the suffocating heat at the back 05:20 of my parents' van slowly baking to death 05:23 until the day my dad actually put a vent in the roof 05:26 so we could get a little bit of air. 05:28 And while we're talking about cars, 05:31 most of us, believe this or not, 05:33 most of us never wore seat belts. 05:37 My brothers and I actually sat on a foam mattress 05:39 my dad put in the back of the van. 05:41 And at one point, my parents even strapped 05:43 a playpen to the floor of a VW van, 05:47 so my youngest brother could ride around town in a playpen. 05:51 And I know what some of you are probably thinking, 05:52 "Man, that sounds like child abuse." 05:55 Way back then, nobody thought that way, 05:57 because we were all doing it. 06:00 And frankly, our childhood, 06:01 it wasn't the Nerf-padded childhood 06:03 that some kids have to suffer through today. 06:06 We just kind of assumed back then 06:08 that bumps and bruises and broken bones 06:10 were part of a normal childhood, 06:13 part of the way that you learn about the real world 06:15 and its physical limitations 06:17 before the price of making mistakes begins to get too high 06:21 and it ruins your life in adulthood. 06:24 When we were kids, we played dangerously. 06:27 We played with pocket knives 06:29 and with homemade bows and arrows, 06:30 and with BB guns and even with fire, 06:33 and nobody batted an eyelash. 06:35 Now, I mean, yeah, okay, sometimes kids got hurt, 06:38 I won't deny that it happened, 06:40 but in other ways, I think it helped us grow up 06:42 just a little bit faster, 06:44 and it gave us an understanding 06:45 that choices really do come with consequences. 06:52 And somewhere out there, back in the 1970s, 06:55 my future spouse, my bride was just a little girl 06:59 playing with her friends, 07:00 learning the same kinds of lessons, 07:02 and I had no idea who she was. 07:05 I knew that some day I'd probably get married, 07:07 because most people do, 07:09 but I had no idea who my wife was, 07:12 where she was, what she was like, 07:15 or how the unexpected plot twists of life 07:18 would eventually land me on her parents' doorstep. 07:23 I mean, how in the without could you possibly know, 07:25 as you walk through a door for the very first time, 07:29 that you are minutes away from actually meeting your wife? 07:33 What if I'd refuse the invitation 07:35 to visit that house on that particular day? 07:39 Who in the world would I have married in that case? 07:41 And how would that have changed my entire life? 07:47 Now look, I've gotta tell you, 07:48 and if you've lived some, you know this, 07:50 there is no way you can predict your life 07:53 from the beginning. 07:54 And even though I've probably blown 07:56 through 2/3 of my life already at least, 07:59 I'm starting to understand 08:01 that there's no way I can predict the rest of it. 08:05 I might, you might think you have a plan, 08:08 but I can promise you, you don't, not really. 08:12 Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't make plans, 08:15 it doesn't mean that you shouldn't pick a college major 08:17 or plan for your career or start saving for retirement, 08:21 because you don't wanna get to the latter part of your life 08:24 without a plan either, after all, the wise man 08:27 who wrote the Book of Proverbs warned us 08:29 to be diligent in Proverbs chapter six. 08:32 Listen to this, "Go to the ant, you sluggard! 08:36 "Consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, 08:39 "overseer, or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, 08:44 "and gathers her food in the harvest. 08:46 "How long will you slumber, O sluggard? 08:49 "When will you rise from your sleep? 08:51 "A little sleep, a little slumber, 08:53 "a little folding of the hands to sleep, 08:56 "so shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, 08:59 "and your need like an armed man." 09:03 So yeah, you need to make plans. 09:06 That's not really what I'm getting at. 09:08 What I'm saying is that you really don't have 09:11 a detailed roadmap of where you're going to go. 09:15 And life has this way of reminding you, 09:17 that you are not really in charge of your destiny, 09:20 not the way that you hope you are. 09:22 Now honestly, that's probably a good thing, 09:25 because the rewards you get from living this life 09:27 might not be any particular destination. 09:30 The reward might be the actual joy 09:33 of just living it. 09:36 So, stick around, I'm gonna come right back, 09:38 and we're gonna explore your childhood 09:40 just a little bit more, and I think you're gonna find 09:42 this pretty interesting. 09:45 - [Narrator] Life can throw a lot at us. 09:48 Sometimes we don't have all the answers. 09:51 But that's where the Bible comes in. 09:54 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 09:56 Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 09:59 we've created the Discover Bible Guides 10:01 to be your guide to the Bible. 10:02 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 10:05 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions. 10:08 And they're absolutely free. 10:10 So jump online now or give us a call 10:12 and start your journey of discovery. 10:16 - You know, looking back from where I sit right now, 10:18 it turns out that my present life, 10:20 my existence is nothing like I thought 10:22 it was going to be when I was a kid. 10:25 Growing up in a remote Canadian town, 10:28 actually I don't think we could qualify it as a city, 10:30 we were too small, I had no idea back then 10:34 I'd be sitting here today right now 10:36 talking to you from the state of Colorado. 10:39 I think I always knew somehow, 10:41 one day I'd be an American. 10:42 I don't know how I knew that, but I did. 10:45 It was just no way for me to predict 10:47 the path I was going to take. 10:48 How was that going to happen? 10:51 So, no, the future was nothing like I expected. 10:56 I was born in the early years of space exploration, 10:59 making my entrance into the world 11:01 about the same time that Neil Armstrong left 11:04 a footprint on the moon. 11:05 I remember actually saving the front page of the newspaper 11:09 back in 1981 when the first space shuttle was launched. 11:13 And now that program has already come and gone, it's done. 11:18 Long before that, I collected all these books as a kid 11:21 about space exploration. 11:23 I still have them somewhere down in the basement, 11:25 I tried to find them for the show today, 11:27 so I could show you. 11:28 I kept all them, because it seemed obvious to me 11:31 when I was a boy that we were perched 11:33 on the edge of a bright, new era, 11:35 where the sky, literally, was no longer the limit. 11:39 Somewhere that stuff is still there. 11:41 I wish I could find it all. 11:42 I have a postage stamp from 1969 11:45 that celebrates the moon landing. 11:47 I actually have a medallion they gave the employees 11:49 at Cape Canaveral, the day that the moon landing happened. 11:53 I have all sorts of things I saved as a boy, 11:56 because they promised me, 11:58 well, they promised me the Jetsons. 12:01 But then when I grew up, the space program ground to a halt. 12:07 We haven't even been back to the moon, 12:08 in at least half a lifetime. 12:10 There's no colony on Mars. 12:12 We don't even have a viable flying car, 12:15 even though I was promised all that stuff when I was a kid. 12:19 Now, on the other hand, I do have a phone in my pocket 12:23 that can outperform a computer 12:25 that used to occupy like half a small building 12:28 back the year I was born. 12:30 The crew of the original Star Trek series had 12:33 these big bulky communicators, if you remember, 12:35 that didn't even have video screens. 12:38 Now, I don't know if you remember this, 12:40 but the Starship Enterprise actually had 12:43 cathode ray tubes for screens. 12:45 They didn't even anticipate LCD monitors. 12:50 But now I have a device that fits in my pocket. 12:53 It lets me go to a virtual video meeting 12:56 on the other side of the planet 12:57 in real time instantaneously, 12:59 even if I happen to be standing 13:01 in an empty field miles from my house. 13:05 So it turns out, it's a funny thing, the future. 13:09 There's just no way you can predict what's going to happen. 13:13 And you can go running to the psychics all you want, 13:15 but none of them can see the future either. 13:18 In all of human history, there has only ever been 13:22 one credible claim from someone 13:25 who says he can see the future. 13:27 And he can back that claim up 13:29 with a 2,600-year track record 13:33 of never missing a single prediction, not even one. 13:39 Now here's what this individual says. 13:40 It's in Isaiah chapter 46 starting in verse nine. 13:44 "Remember the former things of old, 13:47 "for I am God, and there is no other. 13:50 "I am God and there is none like me, 13:53 "declaring the end from the beginning, 13:56 "and from ancient times, things that are not yet done, 13:59 "saying, 'My counsel shall stand, 14:01 "'and I will do all my pleasure.'" 14:05 So on the one hand, you have God, 14:08 who never misses a beat, he never ever gets it wrong. 14:13 He says he can see the future in absolute detail. 14:17 And then you have someone like me, 14:19 and I got almost everything wrong about my future. 14:22 I mean, this life now, 14:23 that is not what I was expecting as a kid. 14:27 Now, I thought I was gonna be one 14:28 of the Dukes of Hazzard growing up. 14:29 Honestly, I thought that's where adulthood would take me. 14:32 I would be defying the local sheriff 14:33 in a hopped-up Dodge Charger. 14:36 Now the truth is I've already owned a minivan, 14:39 and I owned it before I even had kids. 14:42 Now, what did happen is I managed to get 14:45 kind of hairy like all the tough guys were on TV 14:47 back in the 1970s, but turns out 14:50 I'm a day late and a dollar short on that one, 14:53 because by the time I erupted 14:55 in all my matted, hairy, masculine glory, 14:59 that movement was over and hairy guys weren't cool anymore. 15:03 Now it turns out you don't wanna look 15:05 like Burt Reynolds anymore. 15:07 Then to make matters worse, I discovered hair starts growing 15:12 in places you really don't want it. 15:14 And nothing, I'm telling you, nothing, young guys, 15:17 prepares you for the humbling moment 15:19 when you're on the operating table, 15:22 and one of the nurses goes running for the clippers, 15:24 because she's seen what is growing on your back. 15:28 Nothing can get you ready for the moment 15:30 they shear you like a sheep, because you're that hairy. 15:35 Now I find myself plucking hairs out of my earlobes 15:38 and I've joined that long line of aging men 15:40 who have had to visit their nostrils 15:42 with those tiny, little nose scissors. 15:47 Look, I'm telling you, it's almost impossible 15:50 to predict your life in detail. 15:52 And from where I sit right now, 15:54 almost nothing has turned out the way I thought it would. 15:57 I have lived at 24 different street addresses 16:01 in just over half a century. 16:04 I have worked on every continent except one, 16:07 and that's Antarctica. 16:09 I'm an immigrant, like my father was. 16:11 I'm a citizen of a county now I wasn't born in to. 16:14 And there was no way I could've predicted any of this. 16:19 So I've gotta say, there is no way 16:23 that you can predict what being a parent is gonna be like. 16:27 I mean, you think you know, 16:28 because you were once a child with parents yourself, 16:31 but you have no idea, listen to me, young people. 16:34 There was no predicting from the outset 16:37 that my kids would think of a foreign country as their home, 16:40 or that my childhood, 16:42 which feels like it happened yesterday to me, 16:45 well, it was gonna be as remote and ancient 16:47 to my kids as World War II was for me. 16:51 I mean, think about this. 16:52 I was born just 24 years after World War II, 16:55 but it might as well be 2,400 years, 16:58 because it was a world I didn't know. 17:00 And I can only see it through the stories 17:02 my parents and grandparents told, 17:04 and through a bunch of black and white film footage. 17:08 Now that's how remote my childhood looks to my kids. 17:12 The '70s are the '40s to them. 17:14 And the '40s are as far back as the turn of last century, 17:17 as far as my kids are concerned. 17:20 And it boggled their mind when they were little, 17:22 when I told my kids, "I actually knew people born 17:24 "in the 1800s." 17:27 And then they find out my own grandfather was born 17:29 more than a century ago. 17:32 Here's the way I think about it. 17:34 All of us are sitting on this cosmic conveyor belt 17:38 that takes you from childhood to adulthood 17:40 to middle age to old age, 17:42 and then it kind of drops you off in the grave. 17:45 And we're all on that conveyor belt. 17:47 That's the part you can predict. 17:50 But what's not predictable is how you're gonna feel, 17:53 and how each of those different stages 17:55 is going to present itself in your life. 17:59 So, for example, there's no way to predict 18:02 how suddenly your body is going to refuse 18:05 to cooperate with you one day. 18:07 You might now it up here, you might know it intellectually, 18:10 I mean we all intellectually know 18:12 that we're gonna break down, 18:13 we're all gonna get old 18:14 and eventually your body just quits on you. 18:17 But you won't know what it's like until it happens. 18:20 And you hit this stage of life 18:22 where maybe your aches and pains 18:24 are gonna get better, maybe not. 18:27 You know, something's gonna happen eventually, right? 18:30 We all know it, some kind of health crisis, 18:32 but what in the world is it gonna be that gets you? 18:35 Kidney disease, cancer, stroke, 18:38 heart attack, dementia? 18:39 You have no idea. 18:43 Now I'm aware there are these tests now, 18:45 where they can tell you genetically 18:46 what's likely to get you. 18:49 But I gotta say, I've never wanted to do one of those, 18:51 because I don't really wanna know. 18:54 I don't want this sword of Damocles hanging over my head 18:58 ready to drop any day. 18:59 I'd rather just be surprised when whatever it is 19:02 that's gonna get me actually happens. 19:05 Because it all is just guesswork anyway, isn't it? 19:10 Now, don't go away, because I've gotta take a break, 19:13 and I wanna pull all this together in a way 19:14 that hopefully makes a bit of sense 19:16 and show you, I'm not just being a fatalist and a pessimist. 19:20 What I'm talking about can be useful to you. 19:23 I'll be right back. 19:25 - [Narrator] Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 19:27 we're committed to creating top quality programming 19:30 for the whole family, like our audio adventure series, 19:32 "Discovery Mountain." 19:34 "Discovery Mountain" is a Bible-based program for kids 19:37 of all ages and backgrounds. 19:39 Your family will enjoy the faith-building stories 19:41 from this small mountain summer camp and town 19:45 with 24 seasonal episodes every year 19:47 and fresh content every week. 19:49 There's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 19:55 - Now if you've been listening to me 19:57 for the last few minutes, you might be thinking, 19:59 "Man, what a pessimistic fatalist." 20:01 But honestly I'm not. 20:02 I'm just reminiscing on how often I've been wrong 20:06 and how utterly incapable I seem to be 20:08 of predicting the course of my life. 20:10 Maybe you've done a little better. 20:12 Maybe your life has been a carefully written script 20:15 and you knew all your lines from the very beginning. 20:17 But I'm guessing that's probably not true. 20:20 Your 10-year-old self couldn't have never predicted 20:23 the way you are right now, I mean not really. 20:25 And maybe that's one of the reasons the Bible tells us 20:28 to do two different things. 20:30 On the one hand it says to work hard and make plans 20:33 and chart a course for the future. 20:35 But on the other hand, it warns you to be ready 20:37 for all your plans to fall apart without a moment's notice, 20:40 because as it turns out, you're just not in charge of much. 20:44 Listen to what it says in James chapter four. 20:46 "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go 20:49 "'to such and such a city, spend a year there, 20:51 "'buy and sell, and make a profit.' 20:53 "Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. 20:56 "For what is your life? 20:58 "It is even a vapor that appears for a little time 21:00 "and then vanishes away. 21:02 "Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, 21:05 "'we shall live and do this or that.'" 21:07 Then you have these words from Jesus, Matthew six, 21:11 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, 21:13 "for tomorrow will worry about its own things. 21:15 "Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." 21:18 So here's the problem that emerges 21:21 when you choose to believe 21:22 that you're actually in charge of your future, 21:24 that you can plan everything out to the last detail. 21:26 When it doesn't go the way you hoped, 21:29 and I promise, it won't, the anxiety that comes 21:32 from losing control can be crippling. 21:34 You lie awake at night wondering 21:35 how you can salvage your plans 21:37 and push everything back to where it's supposed to be. 21:40 But a lot of the time you're gonna find yourself 21:42 incapable of fixing this. 21:45 You might have planned a long and happy retirement 21:47 with your spouse, but then one of you dies. 21:50 You might have planned to live in a certain way 21:52 in a certain place, but then the door suddenly closes 21:54 and you see it's never gonna happen. 21:57 You might have dreamed of seeing your name in lights 21:58 or making the New York Times Best Seller list 22:01 or playing an instrument to thousands in Carnegie Hall 22:04 and then comes that horrible day 22:05 when you realize none of it's going to happen, 22:08 no matter how much you want it, 22:10 because things happen that you can't control. 22:15 And what you stand to lose at that moment is 22:18 probably the most valuable gift 22:20 that this life can hand you: peace of mind. 22:24 Again, I'm not saying you shouldn't make plans 22:26 or have goals, because that would be a massive mistake. 22:29 I wanna be careful that we come away from this discussion 22:33 not being hopelessly fatalistic. 22:35 I mean, you can make plans, 22:36 and you should make valuable decisions. 22:40 And you know that old age is probably coming, 22:42 and you should make plans for it now, before you get there. 22:46 I guess what I'm trying to say is this, 22:48 don't make a god of your plans, 22:51 because you'll have nothing left 22:53 if things don't go the way you hoped. 22:55 You know, one of the big things you can't possibly predict 22:58 when you're a kid is that astonishing moment 23:01 when you realize your parents were right, 23:04 they actually knew what they were talking about. 23:06 And there was no way for you to understand that as a kid, 23:08 because, well, you hadn't walked down the path 23:11 of adulthood or parenthood yet. 23:13 But now that you're older, you can look back 23:15 and see things from their perspective, 23:17 and you suddenly discover, man, they were completely right. 23:21 So that makes me wonder about the things 23:23 that God tries to teach me. 23:25 There are moments when I don't like it, 23:27 moments when what God says 23:28 completely rubs my fur the wrong way. 23:30 Man, that's not the way I think about it, God, 23:32 what in the world are you doing to me? 23:34 But you know what, I suspect if I was suddenly given 23:37 a glimpse from God's side of the story, 23:39 from the perspective of somebody 23:40 who always knows the end from the beginning, 23:43 well then, I suspect I would suddenly realize, 23:46 man, God is right. 23:50 I mean, maybe that's one of the reasons 23:52 that so much of this ancient book 23:54 is a series of prophecies and predictions. 23:57 I mean, when Jesus predicted his own death by crucifixion, 24:00 he told his disciples, "I tell you before it comes, 24:03 "that when it does come to pass, 24:05 "you may believe that I am he." 24:08 They, the disciples, didn't know the future. 24:10 There was no way they could. 24:12 But when the future arrived, 24:14 they could suddenly see that God did know it. 24:17 So imagine planning life 24:19 with somebody like this in your corner, 24:21 and discovering that he's always right every single time. 24:25 It does mean swallowing your pride, 24:26 but let's admit it, life kind of has a way 24:28 of breaking down your pride anyway. 24:31 So what would it mean to stop worrying about your plans 24:34 and waiting to see what God has in mind? 24:37 "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 24:40 "'plans for welfare and not for evil, 24:42 "'to give you a future and a hope.'" 24:45 Don't go away, I'll be right back. 24:50 - [Narrator] Are you searching for answers 24:52 to life's toughest questions, 24:54 like where is God when we suffer? 24:56 Can I find real happiness? 24:58 Or is there any hope for our chaotic world? 25:00 The Discover Bible Guides will help you find the answers 25:03 you're looking for. 25:05 Visit us at BibleStudies.com, 25:07 or give us a call at 888-456-7933 25:13 for your free Discover Bible Guides. 25:15 Study online on our secure website, 25:18 or have the free guides mailed right to your home. 25:21 There is never a cost or obligation. 25:23 The Discover Bible Guides are our free gift to you. 25:26 Find answers in guides like 25:28 "Does My Life Really Matter to God?" 25:30 And "A Second Chance at Life." 25:32 You'll find answers to the things that matter most to you 25:34 in each of the 26 Discover Bible Guides. 25:37 Visit BibleStudies.com and begin your journey today 25:41 to discover answers to life's deepest questions. 25:50 - You know, I'm really not that old yet, 25:51 I'm just a little over 50, 25:53 but then the other day I was sorting 25:55 through these old photos and organizing digital copies 25:58 of everything and it suddenly struck me 26:01 how few things have played out 26:02 the way I thought they would. 26:04 There was just no way to predict 26:06 which moments would be the sweetest, 26:08 which ones would hurt the most. 26:10 I mean, I heard older guys talking about the bruises 26:13 and scars they all picked up as they lived their lives, 26:15 but I had no idea what they meant 26:17 until I got a few scars of my own. 26:20 And you logically know that loss is going to happen, 26:23 but you have no idea what that means until it does. 26:26 You lose your health, you lose your living, 26:28 you lose a person you love. 26:30 It's all just an intellectual exercise until it happens, 26:33 and then you suddenly realize why the poets 26:35 of every time and every place have struggled 26:38 to put these things into words. 26:41 But here's the thing. 26:43 This life has actually given me 26:45 far more than I thought it might. 26:47 Yeah, it's been challenging and I've spent years 26:49 of my life clinging to the wheel with white knuckles 26:51 and my teeth clenched. 26:53 And this has been every bit as hard, every bit as painful 26:57 as previous generations tried to warn us. 27:00 But you know at the same time, 27:02 life has actually been merciful enough 27:05 not to give me everything I asked for. 27:08 Now, I've discovered that the real reward in life, 27:11 as I've said already, it's not a particular destination. 27:15 The reward is found in just living it 27:18 and discovering the only God 27:20 who really understands what's going on. 27:22 So, if my life were to come to an end right now, 27:25 if I died as I walked out of studio, 27:27 I've gotta say, I couldn't have asked for any more. 27:30 And if I do get another 30, 40 years, 27:33 I can't wait to find out what God wants to teach me next, 27:36 because here's what I've discovered. 27:38 You take this as your guide. 27:41 You live this way, take its advice, 27:43 you're gonna get to the finish line, 27:45 and you'll find your whole life has been authentic. 27:48 You've done it right. 27:50 Thanks for joining me, I'm Shawn Boonstra. 27:52 [dramatic music] |
Revised 2021-03-18