Recover your sense of urgency

Last year I was in Orlando, Florida and needed to get to Indianapolis for my son’s graduation. At 9:35 a.m., I had 25 minutes to takeoff when I stepped out of the car at the airport. My heart was pounding and I was thinking, “This is going to be real tight.”

I ran to the ticket counter line. It was a long line and it looked impossible to get thru it in time.

The gate agent in charge of the line said, “Forget it, you’ll never make it.”

I said, “let me try.”

He said, “look at the line!”

I said to the first person in line (who overheard), “Can I cut in front of you?”

She said, “Yes!”

Now I was talking to the ticket agent who repeated the same thing,

“Forget it, you’ll never make it.”

I said, “I’m a runner, let me run!”

She said, “OK” with a shrug of her shoulders.

She was a trainee. She took forever and finally handed over my standby
ticket with the help of her trainer. I ran to the monorail train and burst thru the doors as they opened. With a few minutes still on the clock, the train headed to the terminal where my plane was parked.

It slowed to a stop, the doors opened, and I sprinted to the moving sidewalk. I could see the gate up ahead and, dragging my suitcase behind me, ran to it, arriving out of breath with the gate agent counting tickets. I gave her mine and squeezed thru the door and onto the plane.

I made the flight by one minute.

You see, I had a lot at stake. Other people could afford to wait for the next plane. For me to do so would have meant missing my son’s graduation. And that just wasn’t an option.

I think what all these well-intentioned people meant was, “I wouldn’t risk trying if I were you.” But they had nothing at stake.

Yes, I’m too type-A and need to slow down more often. That’s my issue and I own it. But maybe some of you need to speed up and recognize all you’ve got at stake in life. I don’t mean that you need to get any more frantic or crowd your schedule with still more to do. What I mean is, recover your sense of urgency about how quickly life goes by and the impact you could potentially make.

The Bible says that we’re like the grass of the field; this show is over much too quickly. The curtain falls before we even realize it. We

all have a lot at stake – it’s the only life we’ve got. We can make a much bigger difference than we realize. Every day we have the opportunity to love people more.

Maybe more people should be running to “make the train.”

What I mean by that is, more of us need to recognize afresh that life is precious. Let’s resolve to go for broke in life, living it to the max, at the end leaving it with no regrets. There are widows and orphans who need us and more of them in our circle of influence than we may realize. There are lonely old people and affection-starved latchkey kids. The planet has never been more crowded with need and we have been given all authority and power by our master.

Folks, there’s someone waiting at the other end of that train ride who needs you – figure out who they are and get running.

“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall…” -1 Peter 1:24