I Don’t Want to Spend My Life Waiting for It to Begin

Earlier this year, I was reading some of Henry Thoreau’s writing and came across this passage from Walden:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life…”

As a man who enjoys spending as much time in the woods as I possibly can, the line, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…” spoke volumes to me.

Not simply because of the act of wandering into the wilderness, but because of a fear I have always wrestled with.

What if I reach the end of my life and discover that I never truly lived?

Not in the manner the world tells me I should live. I am not talking about gaining as much as I can, fulfilling every desire that presents itself, or pursuing every pleasure that enters my reality.

I mean something much simpler.

What if I wait too long to do what I am supposed to be doing?

We often tell ourselves: Life will begin when I get there.

When I get the job.

When I find the person.

When I achieve the thing I am pursuing.

When I become who I want to be.

Because there is always something else.

Another horizon to chase.

And eventually, we may realize that we spent our lives pursuing something without ever experiencing where we were.

I have spent much of my life looking ahead. There was always something beyond where my feet were. A place I wanted to go. A dream I wanted to reach. A version of myself I thought I needed to become.

Somewhere along the way, I started treating the present as a road to the life I wanted rather than recognizing it as part of the life I had already been given.

But I want to live deliberately.

With intention.

To be fully present where my feet are.

I love Thoreau’s idea of stripping away everything that is unnecessary. But I don’t think we have to escape life to do that.

We can do it right where we are by asking a simple question:

What is essential?

My answer?

Faith.

Hope.

People.

Purpose.

Service.

And above all, Love.

The work God has put in front of you.

We don’t have to go into the woods to confront what matters. Sometimes the woods are chapters of disappointment.

Chapters of loneliness.

Moments when something you thought would remain for years is suddenly removed.

And you are left asking:

Who am I without this?

Thoreau said he wanted to live deeply.

Christ says something even more radical:

“Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

How often do we think living fully means holding onto as much as possible?

Our dreams.

Our control.

Our comfort.

Our reputation.

The life we imagined for ourselves.

But Christ says the person who desperately tries to preserve his life will actually lose it.

And the person who gives it away will finally find it.

Perhaps that is what Thoreau was reaching toward when he wrote about sucking out all the marrow of life.

The deepest life is not the life in which we experience the most. It is the life in which we are fully surrendered to what God has called us to do.

So what would it look like to start living now?

Not when everything works out.

Not when the uncertainty disappears.

Not when you finally arrive.

Now.

A few months ago, some of my teammates and I were reading through the book of Ephesians together. When we reached chapter five, we came to Paul’s instructions concerning marriage.

All of us reading it at the time were single men.

One of my teammates made the comment, “Well, this doesn’t really apply to us because we’re not married.”

There are certainly ways that particular passage applies differently to single men. But I proposed another idea.

Why wait for a wife to come along before learning how to act like the man God calls me to be? If I wait until then to become a man worth marrying, I may have waited too long.

And I think that is true of more than marriage.

Why wait to become courageous until courage is required?

Why wait to become disciplined until the opportunity arrives?

Why wait to become generous until you have more?

Why wait to become the man you believe God is calling you to be?

Life is not waiting somewhere beyond the horizon.

It is not hiding inside the achievement I have yet to reach, the person I have yet to meet, or the version of myself I have yet to become.

Life is here.

It is in the breath I have been given.

The people God has placed before me.

The work of my hands.

The suffering I am asked to endure.

The love I have been called to give.

Truthfully, living deliberately means recognizing that I may not get another chance to live this particular moment.

I do not want to reach the end of my life and discover that I was always waiting for it to begin.

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Additional reading:

• Ephesians 5:15–16

• Psalm 90:12

• James 4:13–15

• Matthew 16:24–25

• Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11

• Galatians 6:9–10

• Colossians 3:23–24

• Luke 9:62