You Only Live Once. Time is running out. Your days are numbered and you won’t always have the opportunity of the present moment. So take advantage of today because eventually there will be no tomorrow. The last thing you want is regret so be sure to experience life in all of its fullness while you still can. There is an urgency to life, it is special because it is fleeting. Don’t waste it. You only live once – or at least that’s what we’re told.

YOLO is a saying that assumes life’s unique quality comes primarily from its finite duration. The implication is that once its over, its over. In other words, our lives will have a definite end at which time we no longer have the opportunities that we enjoy today. Accordingly, truly living means living for the now, because there might not be a later. While there is a good deal of truth to be found in a YOLO philosophy of life, it misses perhaps the greatest truth of all . . . the fact that death is not really the end of us.

In one sense it may be true that we will all stop living, but that does not mean we will stop existing. Most of us will have to face the unpleasant reality of our bodies failing due to accident, evil, illness, or age but does the ending of our breathing lungs and beating hearts mark the end of us? And will the missed opportunities of the now ever have a chance for future fulfillment? Is there urgency in life simply because the sand is slipping through the hourglass or might there be an even more pressing reason?

“. . . it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment . . . ” Hebrews 9:27

As stated so well by the band Switchfoot in their song Afterlife, “You and I, we begin forever now.” The moment we are born is not a countdown to one fateful final day, but instead it is the countdown to all of eternity. Dallas Willard, in his book The Divine Conspiracy, asked, “Suppose you would never cease existing and there was nothing you could do about it?” His point was clear; we are eternal beings, death is not the end, it matters not how many days you spend on earth, but it does matter how you spend those days. Your life now determines your eternity!

“He has put eternity into man’s heart . . .” Ecc 3:11

You see, what makes life so special is not the limited number of days we have to experience it, but instead the incomprehensible impact those days will have on our eternal existence. Life is not unique only because it is finite, it is unique because it determines the infinite. To quote the movie Gladiator, “What we do here will echo throughout all eternity.” The fact of your eternal existence cannot be altered but the state of your eternal existence can.

“And this is the promise that he made to us – eternal life.” 1 John 2:25

So while it may be true that you only live once, you exist forever, and if you desire your eternal existence to far and away exceed your greatest expectations of what living a joyous life could offer then give yourself to the One who claimed to be “The Way, The Truth, and The Life“. Submit your life while it lasts on this earth to the One who desires to prepare a place for you where there will be no fear of regret and no missed opportunity for happiness.

Your eternity has already begun, there is nothing you can do to blot out your existence, so look beyond the borders of this brief life to the one that lies beyond, and seek the life everlasting.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16