(Being Wednesday's "Thought for the Day")

A couple I know have a joke that they tell often. “We are averagely healthy” the husband says, ”She catches everything and I catch nothing!”

I would say on the whole that I have been fortunate in never having to face a medical condition that threatened my life. I suspect that most of us would hope we never have to, although many of us will. Maybe being a priest I have a greater awareness of how often these things do happen.

Have you noticed how the people who are most motivated to live life to the full are those who've learnt just how precious it is? It’s a knowledge that usually follows from a radical realisation of mortality – an encounter with accident or illness that could so easily have killed them.

They have a sense of urgency that few of us possess. We all know that this life can't go on for ever, and the older we get the quicker it seems to go past. Yet it still seems to take a crisis experience to move the knowledge from the head to the heart.

We live in a culture that quietly tries to ignore mortality, but in doing so we are shielded from the full value of our lives. Each of us, like the packaged food on the supermarket shelf, has a “Use by” date. And none of us know what it is.

But this knowledge should not make us gloomy. Instead it should make us ask a question, “what am I going to do with the time I have?”
It’s not about success, making money, or having more “things”. The biggest contribution we can each make to the other, to the world around us is making a difference, about doing something significant. A lasting change for the better.

Today and every day, as you go about your business, whether it’s mundane or extraordinary. Ask yourself – what am I doing to make a difference? That surely, is the best thing each of us can do with the precious gift of each 24 hours.

¶ 7:33 am