Living Life With Urgency

About six weeks ago, I was in the middle of a workout when out of nowhere I felt like a bomb had gone off in my head. Within hours, I went from an ambulance to a Life Flight and multiple tests when a neurologist informed my wife and me that I had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke.

In the weeks that have followed, I have come to learn the severity of what happened to me and am beyond thankful that I am still here to enjoy the life I have.

When you have an event that threatens your life and renders you sedentary for a number of weeks, you spend a lot of time thinking. And one of the many things that I have thought about often is my intentions versus my actions.

The Malaise of Good Intentions

We've all done it. We intend to call that friend we haven't talked to in months. We plan to take that trip we've been dreaming about. We mean to spend more time with our kids, pursue that passion project, have those important conversations, or make those necessary changes in our lives.

The intentions are there. The plans are made. But somehow, life happens. Other things take priority; some of them good things, even important things, but are they the best things?

Work demands our attention. Kids' schedules fill our calendars. Unexpected obligations arise. Before we know it, months have passed, then years, and those intentions remain just that, intentions.

James addresses this directly in his epistle when he says: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."

A mist. That's what our lives are. Here for a moment, then gone. Yet we live as if we have endless time to get around to the things that matter most. And, if we are honest with ourselves, if those things we intend to do were really the most important, we would do them.

The Wake-Up Call

Lying in that hospital bed, I had to confront something uncomfortable: I have often allowed good things to crowd out the best things. I had a list of people I meant to reconnect with, experiences I wanted to have with my wife, conversations I needed to have with my kids, and ways I wanted to serve that I kept putting off until. I came to the belief that my intentions mean absolutely nothing and serve no one.

And now I'd been given a stark reminder that tomorrow isn't guaranteed.

Yesterday, I was on the phone with my friend Tim, sharing these thoughts about my shift from intention to action. When he heard what I was wrestling with, he said something that impacted me greatly. "Given what you've been through and realizing how close you came to dying, you're living life with a new sense of urgency."

Living With Urgency

Before you think I'm talking about living in a frantic rush or becoming stressed about time running out, let me be clear, that's not the kind of urgency I'm talking about. This isn't about adding more to your plate or living in anxiety about the future.

Biblical urgency is about aligning your actions with what matters most. It's about recognizing the brevity of life and making intentional choices about how you spend your time. It's about moving from "someday" to "today."

Paul captures this in Ephesians 5:15-16: "Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." Making the most of every opportunity. Not someday. Not when things slow down. Now!

This kind of urgency doesn't create stress; it actually reduces it. Because when you're living with intention and acting on what matters most, you're no longer carrying the weight of all those unfulfilled good intentions.

Urgency means when you think about calling someone, you call them. When you feel prompted to encourage someone, you do it that day. When you know a conversation needs to happen, you schedule it this week, not "sometime soon." When God lays something on your heart, you move toward it rather than adding it to your someday list.

My Word for 2026

I stopped making New Year's resolutions years ago. Instead, I choose a word to guide my year. This year, I was having a hard time identifying one, but after the conversation with my friend Tim, I told him, "That was the word I'd been searching for to guide my year . . . Urgency!"

I don't know how much time I have left. None of us do. My stroke was a stark reminder that life is fragile and time is precious. But it was also a gift, a chance to reset, to move from good intentions to Godly action, to live with the urgency that honors the life I've been given.

So I'm done waiting for the perfect time, the right circumstances, or for things to slow down. I'm done with someday. The time is now.

What about you? What intentions have you been carrying that need to become actions? What conversations need to happen? What dreams need pursuing? What relationships need attention? What has God been prompting you toward that you keep putting off?

Whatever it is, may I encourage you not to wait. Live with urgency. Because we're all just a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes, and the time we have is a gift not to be squandered.

Running the race with you,

Carlos

P.S. I just launched my new website, which you can find here. If you are in need of a speaker for your conference, team, or congregation, I'd love to talk!

This edition was first published in The Life Design Newsletter on LinkedIn.