Priorities

There is one distinct advantage in traveling.  You have plenty of time to reflect, ponder, and struggle with your priorities.  Why am I traveling so much?  What was the point of this particular trip?  Why was it so special?  With time one realizes the pointlessness of this reflection unless one commits to doing something with the reflection.  There is little point in spending the time, struggling with the demons we create and carry with us and losing sleep over the costs in relationships if the process is merely an end in itself!  Yet I find myself in and on this dead-end street far more often than I care to admit. 
 
There are far too many things going on in your life and mine.  I wonder how many of today’s crisis I will remember in the future.  Tomorrow I’ll remember most of them, but a week, month, or year from now?
 
As I look past through the last decade there are few crisis I can recall in detail.  I can remember dinners, times spent with friends, and especially when the girls and I were connecting.  I close my eyes and remember the time together as if it were just minutes ago.  Smells, sounds, and colors pop as if they were still hanging in the air; the stillness of a special moment, the colors of the sky as a conversation took an amazing turn, and the sounds of insects adding their own twist on life’s melody. 
 
In this context it is important to seize and hold the values we treasure most in life.  Relationships which define who we are, relationships which give us a bigger view of life than we would otherwise have, and relationships which nurture and challenge our steps all form the heart of our lives.  Ignore this and risk what others before us have lost.  They were where we are.  “Interesting—they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, ‘They hated me [Spirit of Loving Relationships] for no good reason.’” (John 15.25)  Be careful – this could be either of us.