I recently saw a post that asked, “What line do you use before making a bad decision?” And I instantly thought “YOLO!” You only live once so why not? Normally, when we use this phrase it is when we want to do something immoral or outrageous. We often use this statement when we don’t want to consider the consequences of our action.
And the truth is, yes, we only live once on this earth. One person I know that has lived twice was Lazarus, and he didn’t start over he just continued on. So technically, he did not have a second life, but an extension to life. Lazarus did not have the opportunity to re-do anything he did in the past, but he got the chance to make the rest of his life better.
Would you want the opportunity to re-do your life? If you got the chance to hit a reset button, would you? I often wonder how my life would be different if I had chosen a different path. It is because of the unknown, about how our life would be different if we make different choices, why we often yell YOLO before making our decisions. We choose our paths hoping we made the best decision that will allow us to live life to the fullest.
However, I wanted to look at YOLO in a different light. Since we only have one life to live, why not go all out for Jesus. We will never get another chance to serve God on earth again in this way, or to serve people or to share our testimonies. After this life is over, you will never get the chance to minister to sinners around you. After the trumpet sounds and the clouds roll back it will be a completely different life. So now that we have the opportunity, why not do all that we can for God?
We often forget that our job here on earth is to reach out to the lost and to help guide others to heaven. But instead we focus on how we can get the most out of this life, ignoring the commission we were given. We focus on how much we can achieve and how high we can climb the social ladder before we die. We only have one life to live, and if we spend it only focusing on us, we might not have a favorable eternity when our life is over.
I believe we should use this opportunity here on earth to do all that we can for God. As some of you may have known Kerry-Ann McLeod, a former writer of this magazine, was a great example of living out “YOLO”. She knew this was the only life she was given so she did all she could, and she did it for God. She was a dancer, but when her illness got worse and she could not dance anymore she helped to choregraph for other praise dancers. She was a teacher, and when she could not teach anymore, she would help students with their homework. When she could not minister God’s word as she used to, she wrote and was able to reach a wide audience to tell them more about God’s love. She had the voice of an angel and she would sing when given the opportunity. Even when she could hardly hold the microphone, she still found a way to minister to others through song. May her soul rest in peace.
We only have this one life to live, there will be no other opportunity to show love to those in need, to feed the hungry, to comfort the grieving. This is the only chance we get to show Christ’s love to those around us, and to help populate the kingdom of heaven. So, the next time an opportunity presents itself for you to share God’s word, why not say YOLO, because this might be the only opportunity you get to do something like this? When it is all said and done, and he welcomes you home, would you have done all you can with the one life you were given? YOLO.
Ashea West is a Doctor of Medicine, which she recently completed after studying in Grenada and New York. She is from Manchester, Jamaica and had left her hometown to chase her dreams in the medical field. She is passionate about sharing the gospel, using whatever opportunities she is given. “I do believe in blooming wherever I am transplanted”.