We started like we would any other game and as per usual within the first ten minutes it was clear who was going to be having fun and who were going to be the joy suckers. I was being a joy sucker.
There was no unusual energy. We had some great plays and screamed in each others faces. We had some pathetic plays and internally smoldered. We could have beat the other team but there was no sense of urgency. Just another game on another night. We played three games and lost in the third. I was mad because my setting had been off but I figured there's always another night. Whatever. Better luck next time.
We gathered around for team high five's and my team mate came over and put an arm around me.
"That's the last of the Alaska Legacy," he said. I was confused.
"What?" I asked.
"You're the last Alaskan on the team. Next year there won't be anymore Alaskans," he answered. I stared at him.
"What?" I repeated lamely.
"Did I not tell you guys it was the championship game?" He asked. None of us had known. The silence was palpable. I wondered when I would ever get the chance to play again. That might have been it. For years. Was that how I had wanted to spend my last moments on the court? Of course not. If I had known that this was it, it would have been different.
Like a thief in the night.
It hit me as I drove home. This is how He's going to come. No one is going to warn us that He's on His way so that we can clean our houses, pay off our credit card debts, and call our mother's to make things right before He gets here. Suddenly He'll be standing in front of you, ready to review who you are right in that moment; who you were the five minutes before He got here; who you've been in the week before He showed up on your door step.
There is no other time but right now to be excellent. At any moment I could turn around and be faced with the One who is giving me the chance to be excellent. Who has asked me to be excellent. Given me the tools and told me to create excellence with them.
Who do I want to be when I come home one day and He's sitting at my dining room table with my life printed out for review?
"Your faithfulness is going to be judged by your actions from the last hour," He'll state. And I'll think of the times I denied my family, or faced demons, but none of that will matter. It will be too late to live with urgency. To late to know that this day and this moment are all I'll ever have. What do I want him to see when he looks at the last hour of my life?
Excellence.
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