In the movie Return to Paradise there is a scene I can’t get out of my head: A young American stands in front of a Malaysian judge who asks him why he is there in his court. He answers the judge, “I’m tired of living my life carelessly.”

At the beginning of the film, three young Americans, Sheriff, Tony, and Lewis, meet while vacationing in Malaysia. They buy a large amount of hashish and spend the summer partying. Sheriff and Tony fly home to New York and go on with life. Lewis is caught with the leftover hash. To be in possession of this amount of drugs in Malaysia means one is a trafficker and the sentence is death. Only if the other men return to the island, own up to their part, and take the prison sentences meted out will Lewis’s life be spared.

Sheriff didn’t have to return. He could have stayed in the United States, home free. Yet, there he stands, “I am tired of living my life carelessly.”

Careless. That’s the word isn’t it? That sums up so much of our lives, our culture. We seldom start with evil intentions, but we’re so self-absorbed, so careless with our actions and thoughts. Our over-entertained, over-massaged psyches are spiritually lazy and lethargic. When we are energetic it’s usually because of money, possessions, position, sex, security. Sadly, it’s seldom over justice or truth. This is truly an equal opportunity malady. We Christians are just as guilty as those who profess no faith, many would say more so.

Os Guiness, in his speech entitled “The Call,” tells the story of Thomas Linacre, doctor to Henry VIII and founder of the Royal College of Physicians. It was in an era when Bibles were very rare and precious and seldom in the hands of laymen. When Linacre was given a copy of the four Gospels, he read them then gave the book back, saying, “Either these are not the gospels or we are not Christians.” He was struck by the gap between his life, the church’s life, and the teachings of Jesus.

The gap that Linacre saw is the same gap that exists today: the gulf between Jesus’ teachings and the carelessness of much of our daily living. Charles Allen, a pastor and prolific writer, coined the phrase “Living careless and prayerless.”

A while back I became so struck with this idea of not living carelessly that I determined to start each morning with a prayer to live the day at hand carefully. I came up with the following four resolutions.

First, to not live carelessly I must learn to recognize and walk in the spiritual world, to nurture my spiritual senses. C. S. Lewis called this world we now live in the Shadowlands, and the other world the one of true substance. In this world we use our five senses to hear, see, touch, taste, and smell. Yet, the Bible is overflowing with references to our spiritual senses: He who has ears to hear let him hear. My sheep hear my voice and follow me. The blind lead the blind. The eyes are the light of the soul. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Our prayers are like sweet aroma to God.

To nurture our spiritual senses is to live in such a way that we are consciously aware of God’s voice and presence: In us. Around us. In others. In His Word. Charles Williams defined the art of spiritual living “as the ability to live the ordinary in an extraordinary way and to live the extraordinary in an ordinary way.”

Second, to not live carelessly I must remind myself each and every morning that I was created for an eternal purpose, and keep that focus throughout the day.

It’s a way of living that is not about money or position or pleasure. Those things may or may not come. This is a way of living where even the ordinary is infused with the extraordinary. We do what we do for Christ, in Christ, and most of all because of Christ and the purpose for which He grasped us. It is an intentional, thoughtful decision to live our lives carefully with an eternal purpose in mind. There are no magic pills, no quick fixes. We are a slow-witted people, stubborn and willful. Yet we also possess the ability to learn to be molded, to progress—baby stepping if you will. But progress to where? Progress for what purpose?

TO NOT LIVE MY LIFE CARELESSLY I will start each morning with a prayer for today to Be aware of God’s presence in and around me, hearing what natural ears cannot hear and seeing what natural eyes cannot see. Follow my calling (the purpose for which Christ grasped me) each and every day. Be humble and teachable. I will find myself in the best of company. Remember daily the laughter which is at the center of all things.

Os Guiness, in the speech I mentioned previously, stated: “The single strongest source of purpose is in those who discover not just that they’ve been created to be something, but they’ve been called to something. . . . Something they would never have been if they had not answered that call . . . something they would never have been if they had missed the call of their creator.” Careful living is to recognize the call of Christ in our lives.

Third, to not live my life carelessly I must walk through each day with a humble heart. Ben Franklin told of a visit he had at the home of the great preacher Cotton Mather. At the end of the evening when he rose to leave, Mather led him through a back entranceway. As they walked down the narrow passage, Mather kept admonishing his guest to, “Stoop. You’ve got to stoop.” Nevertheless, Franklin cracked his head on a low-hanging crossbeam. Never one to miss an opportunity to teach, Pastor Mather said, “You are young and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard bumps.”

We have had a number of great men and women of God visit JPUSA and walk through our house in the last twenty-eight years. As I‘ve had the privilege to meet many of them, I can tell you without an exception they all have had about them a humility of spirit. Not passivity, don’t make that mistake. These are people on the front lines, preaching and exhorting, fighting for the poor. Yet, each of them has carried in their personal life a humility that is born of the knowledge of their indebtedness to God’s grace. Humility is not just an ornamental virtue. Those who possess it know it comes from self-knowledge.

The truth of self-knowledge is so poignant in C. S. Lewis’s great book Till We Have Faces. While Orual, the queen, is waiting her judgment from the gods, she has this dialogue with her old teacher:

Orual, “I cannot hope for mercy.” The teacher replies, “Infinite hopes—and fears—may both be yours. Be sure that, whatever else you get, you will not get justice.” Orual responds, “Are the Gods not just?” The teacher says, “Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?”

Humility and gentleness of spirit is born from the knowledge that if we all got what we deserved we would be lost. If we received justice we would be condemned eternally, but from the deep well of God’s love comes mercy. When we are aware of the mercy shown daily to us, we come to walk with humility. This awareness makes us very careful in demanding payment or strict justice for others.

A humble person is a teachable person. In The Place of the Lion, Charles Williams writes, “No mind was so good that it did not need another mind to counter and equal it and to save it from conceit and blindness and bigotry and folly.”

Fourth, to not live carelessly I must remember to laugh throughout the day. This may sound contradictory, but laughter gives us perspective. It is important to not take ourselves too seriously.

I’m not talking about cynicism or crudeness which has nothing to say but appears clever by putting down everything and everyone. I’m talking about a laughter that sheds light not darkness. I am not speaking of frivolity. In fact I believe you must be a serious person in order to delve deep enough to find the laughter at the center of God’s heart.

Spirituality without laughter is like the cross without the resurrection. It is to lose sight of the hope we have in Christ. To laugh in the spiritual sense is to be able to put things in balance. It is only when we are cursed with the need to be important that we cannot laugh with ourselves and others.

We are not to laugh at others or even at ourselves, rather we laugh at the absurdities of our human condition. We laugh at the silliness of our finite thinking. We laugh for the joy of knowing God’s merciful and loving heart towards us. We laugh because we know the end of the story.”

To not actively choose to live life carefully is to choose carelessness by default. At the end of each of our lives we’re going to stand before a judge who is going to ask us what we have to say for ourselves. I want to be able to say, “I was tired of living my life carelessly.”

First published in Cornerstone (ISSN 0275-2743), Vol. 29, Issue 120 (2000), p. 25
© 2000 Cornerstone Communications, Inc.
Electronic version may contain minor changes and corrections from printed version.