Driving down the road recently I heard a song on the radio that put my mind to contemplating obituary writing (now that sounds like a bit of a downer, doesn’t it?).
It is a song by the group Sidewalk Prophets, called “Live Like That,” and it just makes me consider how I live my life, in such a profound way, every time I hear it.
The song begins with the simple question that we have all asked at some point in our lives:
“Sometimes I think
What will people say of me
When I’m only just a memory
When I’m home where my soul belongs”
I see that question in the eyes of the elderly especially, but also in the eyes of those who are my age, when I attend a funeral. We celebrate a life, and wonder if we are living in such a way as to give reason for celebration when we pass. Common contemplation for we mere mortals.
Then it moves into the question that really makes me ponder how I am spending the gift of the time I have to walk this sod:
“Was I love
When no one else would show up
Was I Jesus to the least of those
Was my worship more than just a song”
Ah, authentic living! That is what I desire with all my heart, but I am so very … human. I fail at this so easily. I forget to be the hands and feet of my God. I sometimes worship out of ritual. My authenticity can sometimes be so very … plastic … but that is not what I desire most.
In the second verse, I am challenged not in what I do, but in who I am in my heart:
“Am I proof
That You are who you say You are
That grace can really change a heart
Do I live like Your love is true
People pass
And even if they don’t know my name
Is there evidence that I’ve been changed
When they see me, do they see You”
Ah, the questions that are at the heart of living a life as a reflection of the one who lives within us. It is here that I want so very much to be successful, not for my own success, but to accurately represent the one who I claim with my lips has changed my life, who gives delight to my days, who gave more than any other. This verse is one that I want to rattle through my brain as I live each day. I need it to rattle in my head, so as to remind me to live with purpose and intent each day.
The chorus and the ending of the song pull it all together …
“I want to show the world the love You gave for me
I’m longing for the world to know the glory of the King
I want to live like that
And give it all I have
So that everything I say and do
Points to You
If love is who I am
Then this is where I’ll stand
Recklessly abandoned
Never holding back
I want to live like that”
itsawonderfilledlife 