3 Ways We Lose When We Don’t Connect with Others

The other day I was on the telephone with one of my daughters.  We talked for a few minutes when suddenly she said, “Well Dad, I guess I had better go.”

I responded by saying, “Already?  What is your hurry?”

She then said, “Dad-I can tell you are distracted.”

Uh-oh.

I could not argue.  I was distracted.  Charlotte and I had just arrived home after a trip to Arkansas.  I was distracted the moment we walked into the house.  I apologized and said that I would love to talk with her.  She said, “Let’s talk some other time.”

I suspect many of us have experienced such conversations.  However, sometimes the failure to be fully present with others is more than a momentary occurrence.  Some people are just not emotionally present regardless of the circumstances.  This is just the way they function.  In other words, they live each day not really present in the moment they have right now.

What do we lose when we are not fully present?

1.  We lose the opportunity to engage fully in the life we have right now.  Far too often we are waiting for “real life” to finally happen.  Consequently, we don’t give our full attention to our marriages, our children, our friends, or to our church.  We stand by passively waiting for life to come to us.

2.  We lose the opportunity to drink deeply of the life of Jesus.  After all, in Christ, we really do have the capacity to experience a full life regardless of the circumstances.  Yet, for many that capacity is never realized and experienced.

3.  We lose the opportunity to fully connect with others.  It may be tempting to hold back from relationships when you don’t believe you are really experiencing life.  I have know people who moved into a city for a job or to do graduate work at a university.  Some of these people neglected to connect with a congregation or with others because they thought they would be moving in a few years anyway.  Yet, what rich life experiences they missed while waiting for “someday.”

Life is not the past, when things seemed so much better than now.

Life is not the future, what I am waiting for when everything finally comes together.

Life is what you have right now!

By the grace of God, we have all we need through Jesus to be fully present each day.