| 2 Timothy 4:7 – “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” |
I have learned in my life that words tend to have emotions.
There are the obvious ones—family has warmth. Friendship has acceptance. Love has so much more.
But there is one that I think has the emotion of sadness built into it. That word is “potential.”
Potential is what could be, might be.
A speaker once asked his audience of executives what the most expensive piece of real estate in the world is.
They named places like Fort Knox, a parcel in downtown Manhattan, a mansion in Beverly Hills.
The speaker agreed that those indeed were pricey pieces of real estate.
But he said the most expensive is a cemetery. For in it are buried hopes and dreams unrealized.
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem called Maud Miller.
Maud Miller was a beautiful woman who met a judge from a local town. They were smitten with each other.
The judge believed he would like to be a farmer married to Maud. Maud thought she would like to be a wealthy wife to a judge.
But neither shared their feelings and soon they drifted apart. Throughout the rest of their lives, they thought of each other with remorse.
It was then that Whittier wrote: “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!'”
V. W. Burroughs wrote: “One of the saddest experiences is to awaken at old age and discover that one has been using only a small part of self.”
A Christian needs to live his life out to the end. He doesn’t need to leave unspoken words, unexpressed appreciation, or the tasks the Lord has given him undone.
I like what Paul said to Timothy.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7, ESV)
But a few verses later, he told Timothy to bring his books and parchments. The man who wrote a dozen letters of the New Testament still wanted to know more.
Don’t be defined by your potential but by your impact. Give what you can today as if it were your last.
- Robert G. Taylor
robertgtaylor.com
