Let Precious Moments Pass You By
by Greg Morse
We sat alone, not a soul for miles. From a ridge
in the cliff, we overlooked Lake Superioforr as
waves beat against rock. We breathed the fresh
air of solitude. I remember going back and forth
with friends, Should I record it? What if she
wanted to watch it later? What if she wanted to
show others?
Only I, my wife, and the Lord know what was said
that day. The smiles, the laughter — the
chipmunk — the crying. As she finally said yes,
only God’s smile and mine met hers. One of the
most precious events of our lives went
unrecorded. The beautiful moment, fully enjoyed,
slipped through our fingers.
When Beautiful Moments Slip Away
“For the child of God, all precious moments
worth recounting here will be given us in the
next life.”
With the touch of a button, we can memorialize
our kids on their first day of school. We can
record her laughter from the Ferris wheel on our
first date. We can hear his corny joke over and
over, seeing that weathered face one last time
with every push of play. Life is a vapor, and
God has gifted this generation with the ability
to seize our little mist like never before.
But with all good gifts handled by fallen man,
it can become misused. The photo can become
prized above the moment it captures. Who doesn’t
feel pressure to keep the phone within reach to
catch special moments as they come? Mankind has
traded God for images resembling mortal man
(Romans 1:23); have we further traded away the
priceless moments he gives us for images
resembling them? Each of us is tempted, like
none who came before us, to live-stream our life
but forget to live.
Memory Hoarders
By all means, enjoy taking souvenirs from the
past. But when stockpiling and photo-taking
becomes compulsive, when we start living for the
next uploadable Instagram, when we can no longer
enjoy unrecorded beauty, when we become amateur
photographers with no vacations days or
holidays, when we carry a selfie-stick like it’s
a driver’s license, then, we have become memory
hoarders.
We miss precious moments not because we didn’t
have our phones, but because we did. Like kids
texting at the dinner table, we forgot to look
special moments in the eye. We pass on the first
take of life in favor of a later viewing,
trading the real for the replica, and in so
doing, counterfeiting our joy.
And our camera-usage professes much. I believe
it reveals three crucial truths about us.
1. We Fear Death
Memory hoarding reveals what we all already know
but rarely consider: life is fleeting. “Here
today, gone tomorrow” terrifies us. It was just
yesterday we attended sleepovers and played
outside at recess.
We dread death, and this fear subjects us to
“lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:15). The grave
beckons, the walls close in, fear besets us as
we await the grim reaper. And as the shadow
prowls in the dark, we attempt to squeeze as
much life from the peel as we can, while we can.
“Life is a vapor, and God has gifted this
generation with the ability to seize our little
mist like never before.”
One way memory-hoarding attempts this is by
documenting every passing moment worth
remembering. We try to keep the portal open to
the past so that we might travel back and forth,
eating the best of both seasons’ harvest. The
brevity of life makes it too small a thing to
enjoy moments only once.
But our panic often backfires. Our incessant
filming often disrupts the very moments we
attempt to capture. To record our children
playing, we stop playing with our children. To
stop. Grab the phone. And proceed. Is often to
introduce periods into life, mid-sentence.
2. We Seek Immortality
I talked to a dead man recently. He had not
updated his profile in some time. I found out a
week ago he has been dead for as long. The
incident struck me as bizarre. Funny quips hung
on his wall. He smiled in his profile pic. His
personality and image were in pristine
condition. His life’s work stood a click away.
He, as many of us hope to be, was embalmed on
the Internet. Though he died, he lives.
Collecting memories, at its most relaxed, is an
attempt to savor the best wine life offers. At
its most frantic, a shot at immortality. If
science has not cured death, at least technology
can prolong our image, our thoughts, our names
on the World Wide Web. Some of us use our
phones, not so much as a portal to the past, but
as a portal to a limitless audience. And like an
actor with a part too small for his liking, we
spend a lifetime sashaying across social media,
drawing as much attention as possible, before
being forced to exit stage right.
We long to be remembered. We are not beasts,
content to live and die in the field nameless.
We are made to live forever; God has placed
eternity into our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We
pine for the place where remarkable moments
cannot be stolen. But instead of trusting the
one who destroyed the power of death to deliver
us from fear (Hebrews 2:15), we use God’s gift
of technology to seek what it has never truly
offered: eternal life. We frantically write our
names on the walls of the Titanic.
3. We Have Forgotten Our Hope
Our piles of photographs suggest that even we
Christians hold to this life with strained
knuckles. We embrace the lovely as though we
don’t expect to see it again.
“To stop. Grab the phone. And proceed. Is often
to introduce periods into life, mid-sentence.”
Although we might not articulate it, we may feel
apprehensive about being reminded that this
world is not our home. We read the truth, “The
world is passing away” (1 John 2:17), secretly
saddened. This is understandable. This world is
the only one we’ve known. All our joys have been
here. Our loves have been here. But faith
reverses the priority. “We look not to the
things that are seen but to the things that are
unseen. For the things that are seen are
transient, but the things that are unseen are
eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
As the world’s final page is turning, “whoever
does the will of God abides forever” (1 John
2:17). The best, for us, is yet to come. We need
not doubt nor fear our immortality. The grandest
moments here — the ones which compel us to grab
our phones to smuggle what we can for a keepsake
— are, at their most precious, rumors of what is
to come.
Eternity’s Epic Tale
There exists a glory for the Christian in
letting precious moments, after being fully
tasted and delighted in, pass without regret. He
alone need not obsessively stuff memories and
prop them up on display like some do wild
animals. This is not the closest we will get to
heaven.
For the child of God, all precious moments worth
recounting here will be given us in the next
life. Earth’s history will be the epic of
heaven. The best moments in this age will taste
even better in the new world. “In eternity,”
writes Marilynne Robinson, “all that has passed
here will be the epic of the universe, the
ballad they sing in the streets.” Even now,
myriads of glorious heavenly creatures listen
with astonishment (1 Peter 1:12).
In eternity, God himself will tell it. He will
take ages upon ages to page through earth’s
chapters containing the immeasurable riches of
his kindness and mercy towards his people. And
we each will have our part to tell. The golden
thread of his steadfast love will be traced
throughout all our pasts. Calvary will be our
refrain. We will laugh over his mercy, cry over
his compassion, cheer over his triumph, smile
over beautiful moments, and glory in the
fullness to which they all pointed. There, the
essence of all that pleased us here and now will
return to us in full when we see him face-to-
face.
Reprinted with permission from
DesiringGod.com
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