last breath every second
two people no longer want to face of
this earth every second two people gone
but perhaps not forgotten not forgotten
dependent upon how they maximize their
time or their moments while they were
here on earth and that’s exactly what I
want to talk to you guys about today its
moments
you see moments are either lived lost
but never recaptured you see in our
culture we measure everything by seconds
minutes hours days years if you go to a
cemetery and you look at tombstones you
see the length of life they live but
perhaps late US President Abraham
Lincoln said it best it’s not the years
in our life in the end account but the
life in our years that matter most and
so perhaps you could be a 21 year old
who goes too soon but lives a much
fuller life than someone who lives to be
90 and never maximizes all the
opportunities that they have you see
every day in your life you’re presented
with little moments moments to interact
with people moments to change people’s
days by a word of encouragement grocery
store clerk there’s moments presented
before you every single day and the
reality is a lot of these moments are
beginning to be hygienic hijacked
because of distractions hijacks because
what we’re consumed with and so these
moments are being presented before us
every single
and we lose out Exhibit A right how many
of you remember watching Super Bowl 53
junior high Orion McKenna had a moment
of a lifetime that was presented before
him one of the pop icons in the last
three decades known as Justin Timberlake
puts on a phenomenal Super Bowl show
crazy and he decides to enter into the
stands and have a one-on-one dance party
with young Ryan McKenna but Ryan McKenna
completely misses the moment a moment
that we would argue he’ll never get to
experience again and the rest of his
life
I highly doubt he’ll ever be in another
Super Bowl where Justin Timberlake is
the halftime performer and begins to go
have a little dance party with him he
missed a moment you see life isn’t
defined by the years we live life is
defined by the moments we maximize you
see the Greek word on how we usually
define time where we know that 60
seconds in a minute 60 minutes in an
hour 24 hours in a day seven days in a
week four weeks in a month 12 months in
a year 10 years in a decade of a hundred
years it says that’s how we like to
consider time and everything around you
is consumed by that clock you see in
reality a lot of times we don’t manage
time time is managing to us you have to
get up at this time 7:00 a.m. your alarm
clock goes off and for the rest of the
day your entire day is predicated off of
minutes and hours that’s what the Greek
would call Chronos measuring time that
way but they also have another word for
time its Kairos and this is where they
define time as moments and opportunities
you see before watches were even existed
or invented they measure time by moments
what they would accomplish that day what
they would interact with whose life they
might impact opportunities that they
would seize and no matter how hard
we tried to recapture moments all this
for the test of the fact that’s
impossible
two years ago I went down to a Bahama
Island known as a Lutheran and at the
very tip of this island there’s a beach
called Lighthouse Beach and you can’t
just easily drive to the tip of this
Beach
it is a 20-minute through the rough
normal landscape of this Eleuthera
island and that has not been touched
this foilage and habitation that is
rough jungle as you get to the beach but
once you get to it it is most pristine
Beach I’ve ever been to it’s where the
Atlantic meets the Caribbean and it’s
gorgeous and my wife and I are sitting
on the edge of this cliff looking out
seeing these two waves collide two
different colors of Blues and in that
moment my wife and I look at each other
and we knew we knew we had a moment
together a moment shared a moment that
will be etched in time that no one can
ever take away so I went back to the
Luther this year and I was so excited to
go back to the same place but my wife
wasn’t with me but I had to go back to
the same place because in that moment it
was so special I thought I would go
relive it by myself dumb mistake so I
get down there and I take the 20-minute
ride through the jungle vegetation to
get to this point and when we went there
last time there was nobody on this
isolated beach now two years later they
decided to drop Cruise Line ships right
off so people could come see this
beautiful thing that they weren’t
dropping Cruise Line ships that two
years ago so I get there and it’s
crowded it’s packed and I’m devastated
and I realized this about moments you
either live them you lose them but you
can never recapture them and so as you
go on today and tomorrow you’ll have
moments and once you have those moments
pass you by they’re gone you don’t get
to relive them you don’t get to
recapture them
every moment that’s presented for us as
an opportunity to maximize so at the end
of your life the question won’t be how
many years did you live but how did you
maximize the moments you were given
perhaps there’s someone in this school
that has been bullied or sad or it’s
struggling that your one moment in time
where you interact with them could
change everything you see I don’t think
life consists of Chronos seconds minutes
hours I think life consists of the
moments you’re given and the
opportunities you have it’s up to us
whether or not we learn to seize these
opportunities and what completes a whole
life or a full life are individuals who
learn to maximize those moments that
they’re given I’ve never in my life have
I seen a hearse Bronx are a u-haul
follow a hearse to a funeral I’ve just
never seen it and all of us would say
well that’s ridiculous of course you’ve
never seen a u-haul or hearse to a
funeral because we all know the
individual that has lived their life
however short or long in the chrono span
isn’t taking anything with them and I’ve
spent a couple of times beside someone
who is on their remaining days that
doesn’t want any materials to be
accumulated they just want to talk about
the moments that they shared in life the
opportunities they seized they want to
collect their family they want people
around them and they want to reflect and
talk about all the moments in the
memories they had together you see but
if we’re not
we continually allow this to hijack our
moments
think about this we used to take
pictures to capture moments there was a
moment at the camera let’s capture this
moment like me on the edge of the
eleuthero but now we take pictures
trying to create moments and as a result
we’re actually missing moments we used
to take pictures to capture moments
now we take pictures trying to create
moments and as a result we are missing
so you see all of you in this room and
every single one of you in here will
have that moment where the grocery store
clerk with a pier with somebody you may
not even like a tutor coach a friend a
mentor you all have moments of my life
consists and you’ll never get them back
but what consists of a fourth is when we
learn to bring a little things together
so that when you and I take our last
breath we don’t know and we don’t
believe that our life was complete and
then it was full because we didn’t allow
our moments behind you
by seconds minutes in days or a technological device