Carpe Diem

I am reading Tony Campolo’s book with the above title. It means “Seize the day” in Latin. Often we don’t live but exist through each day, going through the motions and taking comfort in routine but all the time in quiet frustration. Tony challenges us that our call is not to exist as a living breathing apathetic human being but one who is fully alive, engaging with God, engaging with one another and engaging with the world we live in.

Tony is very much right in his analysis that apathy is one of the biggest problems of our generation. We live in a world that celebrates switching off and disengaging to live relaxing life styles that take us nowhere and leave us purposeless and empty. I remember being shocked some good fifteen years ago when my three old cousin whom I was babysitting woke up to declare that he was bored!

If Christ came to make all things new and make dead things alive, then this needs to be reflected in the way we live. Christ came not just to give us an eternal salvation somewhere in the future so that our future can be alive but Christ came so that in the NOW, in our everyday lives, we can have true joie de vivre and true meaning and purpose. This comes by being purposeful each day, in the way we engage with God, others and with the world.

Ephesians 2: 1-7
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

I need to say this to myself everyday: Am I fully alive? Am I engaged? Am I celebrating life?

Carpe Diem! Seize each day!