Today will never come again

A few days ago I attended a Christian Day Conference designed specifically for men.  The speaker was Mark Melluish, who is a church leader based in the London area.  He spoke with passion, humour and eloquence, and presented a message which was both challenging and inspiring.  He was talking about the importance of making our lives count, and challenging us to consider what impression our lives are making on those around us.  One of the quotes he related was from Mark Twain, who apparently said,

'Live your life in such a way that when you die even the undertaker is sorry.'

That's some challenge!

There were so many thoughts to take away from the day and ponder, but one personal story in particular which Mark told certainly struck a chord with me.  He related how on a certain occasion he was due to take the wedding of a close family friend.  The big day arrived, and Mark was making last minute preparations.  The wedding ceremony went well.  As guests assembled for the reception, one of Mark's sons noticed that his youngest brother was missing, and went to look for him.  To cut a long and dramatic story very short, Mark's youngest son had fallen from a balcony onto concrete.  For quite some time his life hung in the balance, at times by the thinnest of threads.

The aspect of the story which really struck me was when Mark said that as he and his wife sat by their son's bedside in the hospital, not knowing whether he would recover from his injuries, what kept going through Mark's mind was that on the morning of the wedding, his young son had three times asked Mark to have a game of football with him.  Three times Mark has said "no" because he was too busy preparing for the wedding.  Although there was good reason for Mark to have said no to his son, looking back he very much regretted having done so.

As I heard that story, I thought back to a time a few years ago when a friend invited me to a round of golf.  The date was set, but on the morning we were due to play the weather was rather wet, and I rang up to cancel.  I still regret doing so, as my friend developed an illness from which he subsequently died, and I never did get the chance to play that round of golf with him.

How important it is that we spend our time on what matters most.  We should be immensely careful to make the most of opportunities to cultivate friendships and spend precious time with family and friends.  Each opportunity we pass by is an opportunity lost.  As Rob Parsons has said, no-one every said on his/her deathbed, "I wish I'd spent more time in the office."  But I'm sure that many of us will regret opportunities we scorn to spend more time with family and friends.