Life's Short - Making every moment count
By Tim (Queensland University of Technology)
I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was three. I’ve lived with it for as long as I can remember. I’m used to it now. Basically there are two approaches you can take when you’re confronted with difficulties in life. You can shake your fists at God and get angry at him, or you can turn to him as a source of strength and healing. I’ve chosen to turn to him.
It hasn’t always been that way. I grew up in a Christian home, but the Bible didn’t mean much to me. My Sunday school kept saying, “He died to save you from your sins” but I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t understand that we need to personally respond to Jesus, as our Lord and Saviour. I didn’t really understand that following Jesus means making a choice of whether we hold onto our sins or open up our lives to Jesus and enter into a personal relationship with him. I didn’t understand that becoming a Christian meant making a personal decision that would impact my lifestyle and choices.
My faith became more serious at a World Evangelisation for Christ Christian camp I went to in year 10. Before that, the only time I had connection with God was through Sunday school and when my parents read Bible stories to me. At the camp I started to do Bible studies on my own. A speaker at the camp made a big impression on me. In a card he gave us, he wrote something that summed up what it meant to be surrendered to Christ – doing what God wants and not necessarily doing what I want to do. From then on, in my daily decisions, it made me think about whether what I was doing was what God wanted me to do.
I’m used to my diabetes because I’ve grown up with it. But in my early teens it started becoming overbearing and I started getting sick of it. I’m using a pump now but for a long time I was using needles to administer insulin. I was getting sick of doing finger prick tests to check my blood sugar levels – shoving a needle under my skin three times a day to make it bleed. I was sick of doing these needles and finger pricks and knowing it’s not a temporary thing, it’s for the rest of my life. A lot tedious tasks we can carry out, knowing it’s only temporary. But with diabetes, there ain’t no holidays.
The situation forced me to make a decision about what my attitude towards life and towards God would be. As I said, someone can take two approaches to the troubles and tragedies in life. The first response is to get angry at God and turn against him. Or you can turn towards him in helplessness and say, “God, I can’t do this – help me”. That’s the approach I’ve taken. Instead of turning away from him in anger and resentment, I’ve turned to him for strength, hope and healing. And it makes me feel encouraged.
Diabetes is one of those issues in life that tests you - it either crumples or strengthens your faith, so that through endurance you can be made complete. I think it has helped make me lean on God more, made my relationship with God more solid rather than letting circumstances affect me. You will always have crap in your life, so you can’t let your circumstances dictate how you feel, because when rubbish happens, you get knocked around. My body tends to enter in states of either hypoglycaemia or hyperglycaemia. If I have high blood sugar, I become nauseated, cranky and dizzy and vomit up stomach acid. If I’ve got low blood sugar, I become lethargic and sometimes almost unconscious. Through diabetes I’ve turned towards God, because I realise I can’t do it on my own. I need that extra source of strength to come from somewhere – God.
I think I began turning to God for my source of strength when I realised how fragile life is. My diabetes makes me realise just how frail our bodies are. Our lives are just so short and our bodies are so mortal, what’s the point in finding comfort in pleasures that are just short lived? A lot of my friends look at their lives and say, I’ve only got 80 years to live, I’m going to be ambitious and get as rich and as comfortable as possible. But when you’re dead, what happens to your material possessions, and more importantly, what happens to you? You’ve got to look at the big picture.
I’ve learnt to value every moment and appreciate life. I’ve come to the conclusion that the best thing I can do from day to day is to live connected to God and to follow his son Jesus. I take joy in being connected to an awesome God. And I want to share about who Jesus is with people and how awesome your life can be when you decide to follow him, because being a Christian is more than just fire insurance, more than just escaping hellfire and brimstone. It’s about life right now. It’s about having an awesome life now; seeing life coming to fruition right now; using God as your source of joy and strength when everything is crumbling around you. I was reading in the Bible (James 1:4) - “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” I like that verse because it’s saying that when your faith is tested, that’s when your endurance grows and that’s what makes you complete.
Having a relationship with God and being a Christian is the only place I can see that offers any real answers. People say Christianity is a crutch and helps you deal with your problems if you’re weak, but their career and money and the material things they hold onto is the real crutch. I’ve come to the conclusion that a relationship with God is the only outlook on life that I think offers any real hope and will give my life any ultimate worth. I want people to know that a relationship with God is freely available to anyone who makes a decision to follow Jesus – and it’s the best choice you’ll ever make.
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