Lighten Up, Francis

"Lighten up, Francis." My youth minister used this phrase my entire adolescence. I think it's from a movie. "Monty Python", maybe? Maybe "Airplane". Not sure. Anyway, I digress...
I need this phrase quite often in my life. Here's what a jaunt through my thought life on any given day might read like:

Thought One: "Oh no, the girls are going to mess up those new tennis shoes in the dirt!"
Thought Two: "Seriously? Lighten up, Francis! Why did you buy those in the first place?"

Thought One: "If I don't get this laundry done, I have failed for the day."
Thought Two: "Is anyone walking around your house naked? Lighten up, Francis!"

Thought One: "I ate WAY too much of that cake. Now I'm going to look like the broad side of a barn."
Thought Two: "Someone should smack you right now. One episode of excessive cake eating doesn't determine your weight. Good grief! Lighten up, Francis!"

On and on I could go. We all do this, right? (Please say "yes" or else I might really have a crisis!) We wrestle with our thoughts. Even more than that, in general, don't we take life WAY too seriously? I know that I could benefit from asking myself the question, "How much does this matter in the grand scheme of things?"

For a few years, now, I've added the phrase "kingdom perspective" to my rhetoric. My basic personality focuses on the long term. Since I was a teenager, I've made decisions by thinking about what I would think about the decision ten years down the road. As I've matured in the faith, decisions have become less and less about my future and more based on making choices that reflect the future I've been guaranteed in Christ. I call this having a kingdom perspective. It's not original, but it reminds me all the time that there's a kingdom - it is God's, not mine - and ultimately, that kingdom is what really matters.

When I'm raising my children, for example, I desire to raise them with a kingdom perspective. I see who they are as part of who God made them to be so that they can do whatever God made them to contribute to the kingdom. It's not mine to determine who they are or what they do. It's mine to put up guardrails of truth (based on Scripture) so that they can choose the path God ordained before one of their days came to be (see Psalm 139) and still have the protection of right and wrong, character, and my love to keep them on their path. The kingdom perspective helps me to lighten up and let them be who God made them to be rather than trying to make them who I want them to be.

My sister was always WAY more laid back than my mother and I. Ironically, we always joked that she would out live us because she had such low stress levels. She did not take anything too seriously. My mom and I decided in the days after her death that we were going to have to lighten up. For that reason, my mom didn't make her bed the day of Lauren's funeral. Lauren never made her bed. So, guess what? Sometimes, I don't make my bed (gasp!). And you know what? It's freeing for an uptight person like me to not get all beside myself about whether or not my bed is made.

Kingdom perspective doesn't ask questions about what my house looks like, or what my kids act like. Kingdom perspective produces questions like, "Who have I served today?" "How have I served my kids today?" "Does this affect my kids' character or do I just want them to do something my way?" "How much of Jesus was evident in me today?" Notice that kingdom perspective, in my opinion, focuses on TODAY. Not yesterday and not tomorrow. Today.

Maybe you don't take things too seriously. If that's you, good for you. I'm trying to learn from people like you. Still, I think we could all use the reminder from time to time to lighten up. So in the words of my youth minister (even if it was said WAY too often), "Lighten up, Francis!"