“Living Life on Your Terms”
January 31, 2019
As I was putting away all the evidence of Christmas 2018, and preparing for the first weeks of the 2019, I reflected on one particular greeting I had received from a business—a business who I had significantly “supported” with numerous purchases during the past year. It read:
Dear Friends:
I want to personally wish you and your families a joyful, healthy, and peaceful 2019. May it be full of inspiring experiences, friendships and adventures.
Thank you for being part of the (insert company name) family.
Here’s to living life on your terms. (emphasis mine) Cheers!
While I was appreciative of the greeting from this company, I was struck by the last line—Here’s to living life on your terms! Living life on my terms? What does it mean to live life on my terms? I wasn’t so sure, so I did what any thinking individual would do, I GOOGLED the phrase and here is what “living life on your terms” means:
-it means doing what you want, when you want, because you want to
-it means you have choices and you make them
-it means doing only those things that are important to you
-it means no one is making your decisions for you, you’re making them for yourself, on YOUR TERMS
Not only wasn’t I sure what the phrase meant, after GOOGLING it, I’m not so sure this is possible. I’m not sure anyone gets to live life on their own terms. And I’m pretty sure that living life on your terms is not supported by Scripture.
The Bible gives many accounts of people who had, what I like to call, the Frank Sinatra Syndrome— “I DID IT MY WAY”. In every instance, “living life on your terms” was not sustainable. One example is that of Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul. We read in Acts 9:3, that while Saul neared Damascus (while on his journey to imprison Christians), the Lord intervenes to get Saul’s attention. A
Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:3)
Saul was a fervent persecutor of Christians and living life on his terms until the Lord marvelously intervenes and transforms him and gives him a new direction and mission. Christ pours out his grace, love and mercy on Saul, and takes him out of living life on Saul’s terms to living life on Jesus’ terms.
20 And immediately he (Saul) proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. (Acts 9:20-22).
Like Saul, those of us who have received Christ have received a new mission, grace, love and mercy. We were on one track, which may have been the track of “living life on my terms”, and then directed to another, living life on God’s terms. We have been given a wonderful mission and I pray there would be nothing in my life that opposes His purposes, and that I would faithfully live out what He has for me to do.
13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Luke 16:13)
Dear Friends:
Now that we are one month into 2019, I want to personally wish you and your families God’s grace, love, and mercy! Here’s to living life on God’s terms! Blessings!