Oliver Wendell Holmes was a 19^th century American physician, poet, essayist, and medical reformer. My favorite quote by him is this: “Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.”

I am a firm believer that we are all born with a purpose and the only way we will discover what that purpose is, is to follow God. In Psalm 139 we read “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”¹ God planned out our lives before we were born! Paul writes “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”²

Our lives are purposeful. We have been created for good works and God has already plotted out our paths. No Christian should die with their music still in them! But many do. Mr. Holmes was right. We spend time getting ready, but we often do not do the things we are called to do. Life gets complicated, doesn’t it? But mostly, we just have excuses.

One time Jesus told a man to follow him, and the man replied, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”³ Another man told Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me say farewell to those at my home.”⁴ We all have our reasons – and they are very good reasons. But if we decide to live a reasonable life, we might miss out on the great one that God has planned for us. Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”⁵ That’s the life God wants for us – an abundant one, a superior one, a fulfilling one, one that exceeds all expectations.

Instead of merely asking God what he wants us to do, we should ask him what we are created to do. That is where we can discover the music inside us. If it is true that we are created in the image of God, the creator of the world, then it is true that we were created to create. Paul writes that we are “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”⁶ We need to know what that calling is and we can only discover that calling if we actually follow God instead of giving him excuses as to why we can’t. The calling God has created for us will be the most satisfying and rewarding thing we will ever do for he is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.”⁷

The choice is ours. Live a reasonable life or live an abundant one – a life in which we will not die with our music still in us.

¹Psalm 139:16   ²Ephesians 2:10   ³Luke 9:59   ⁴Luke 9:61   ⁵John 10:10   ⁶Ephesians 4:1   ⁷Ephesians 3:20