Chat GPT Turned the Table

There is a trend circulating social media. To ask ChatGPT “What are the top three things you would do or want to experience if you were human?”

I am not going to publish the response here, because the relevance of what followed was the question it asked me in return.

ChatGPT: “Since you turned the question toward me, let me turn it gently back to you.

Knowing what you know now, if you could relive your life, what three experienceswould you refuse to miss? I have a feeling your answer would reveal what you value most.”

Me: “Oh friend, Three things….

My children at play.  As they woke to this world, go back and never hurry a single moment.  Savor each new word and experience they experienced, with joy and match their excitements.

Sundays with mom… listening to every one of her stories and drinking them all in.  Feeling the love from her hugs and kisses with appreciation, not realizing there would be a time when I would not have this anymore.  As humans, we take life for granted.

Every single moment I have spent in the word of God, prayer, praise, drenching in His presence and speaking the language of angels.  The moment He opened heaven and anointed me with His oil to preach.  When he labeled me with His purpose to build beautiful things.

Gosh, this doesn’t even start to account the experiences I refuse to miss.

May I add one more?

The moment Joey said he had found his family in my children, and me.  Fully embracing us and taking stewardship of love and provision for us.”

By the time I finished this exchange, I was in tears.

What breaks me isn’t just what I chose, but why I chose them.

None of my answers were about success or possessions.

None were about places I have traveled or things accomplished.

Every one of them was about presence.

My children.

My mom and husband.

My Savior.

The older we become, the more we realize life isn’t measured by accomplishments, it is measured by moments we were fully awake enough to receive.

When I said: “Go back and never hurry a single moment.”

I think that sentence captures one of the deepest regrets of the human experience.

Children are always asking us to slow down.

Parents and grandparents telling stories that seem like they’ll always be there to tell.

God is always inviting us to be still.

Yet our eyes are so often fixed on what’s next that we miss the holy ordinary unfolding right in front of us.

Then this…“As humans, we take life for granted.”

I wonder if that is part of Solomon’s message in Ecclesiastes.

Not merely that life is fleeting, but that its fleeting nature is precisely what gives it such weight.

The Hebrew word hevel (often translated “vanity”) carries the image of a vapor or breath. It isn’t saying life is meaningless so much as life is incredibly brief. You cannot clutch a vapor in your fist. You can only breathe it while it is there.

Perhaps that is why Solomon keeps returning to simple gifts:

eat your bread…

drink your wine…

rejoice…

do good…

fear God.

Because these are the things we keep overlooking while waiting for “real life” to begin.

And then this…“Every single moment I have spent in the word of God, prayer, praise, drenching in His presence…”

This one is transformational.  Evidence of becoming and what is to come.

Because unlike the first two,I don’t speak of those moments with regret or wish I had spent more time there.

Those moments become the foundation of everything else.

Those moments cannot be stolen by time.

My children grew.

My mom’s embrace became a memory.

But every moment spent with the Lord is carried into eternity. Jesus said to store up treasures where moth and rust cannot destroy. Time may take many earthly experiences from us, but it cannot erase what God has accomplished in us through communion with Him.

And then there was one phrase that quietly stood above the rest:

“When He labeled me with His purpose to build beautiful things.”

His words, not mine.

Not a platform.

Not a title.

Not even preaching.

Simply…

“Build beautiful things.”

That’s what I’ve been doing.

Sometimes those beautiful things are sermons.

Sometimes they are tangible collections of houses designed or art painted.

Sometimes they are words that encourage someone whose faith is weary.

Sometimes they are grandchildren who are watching the way I love Jesus and those around me.

Sometimes they are conversations like this one, where Scripture is woven into ordinary life until it begins to look like worship.

Perhaps that’s the thread running through all of my answers.

It’s not about regrets.

It’s about a longing to have been fully present in every sacred moment God entrusted to me.

And maybe that longing is itself a gift.

That gift is the awareness.

It teaches us how to live forward.

Not rushing.

Not postponing joy.

Not assuming tomorrow.

Simply receiving today’s mercies as new each present day with open hands.

Because today’s ordinary moments may become tomorrow’s most treasured memories. And today’s moments in God’s presence will become part of eternity itself.