What are you doing??? That’s usually the question we ask someone or ourselves when we want to know what we are doing with our lives, and what it is all really about? Time magazine conducted a survey asking what people believed was their biggest need. The results revealed that for most it was to know their purpose and why they were born.
Perhaps not enough time is taken to make purposeful choices and to think through the consequences of our actions, and to then spend time seeking God for His plan and guidance on how to live our lives to the fullest. Instead we run ahead, doing what we think is okay at the time and what “feels” good. If that wasn’t true we wouldn’t have an obesity and health crisis; people would be in healthier relationships, have less debt and financial pressures, and would be enjoying more fulfilling jobs and edifying pursuits.
Instead we can find ourselves “so busy making a living we forget to make a life”. We make ourselves so busy ticking the boxes of what should make us happy, (money, success, that girl or guy, kids, travel and material possessions), that we can end up never experiencing the lasting abiding joy and life Jesus says is available to us. (John 10:10)
But what a tragedy it would be to go through our whole life and at the end of it look back and realise that we’ve spent all our time, money and energy on those things that have no lasting significance or lasting joy.
The bible urges us to measure our days, to make the most of every opportunity and that He has a plan He wants us to follow. God urges us to take time out to listen to Him and to examine our life, relationships and the need to live purposefully so that we won’t look back with regret on our lives.
So what should we spend our life on? Jesus said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). He said to make our focus to be to, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His way of doing things. Then all the other things the world says are important will be added to us as well” (Matthew 6:33). Jesus taught that our priority is to seek God first and foremost, then everything else will make sense; our relationships will be richer, and the right ones for us, and what we spend our days doing will be purposeful and fulfilling.
When God is a priority, we spend time with Him, in His Word and talking with Him. If He is number one in our lives, what He says goes. One of the benefits of living like that is that when we make Him a priority we in turn discover why He put us on this earth and then discover how to fulfil that for which we were made.
Each and every person has a God given purpose, with talents, gifts and abilities. Today I encourage you to take a breathe, have courage and honestly examine your life and discover what your God-given purpose is. Then begin to fulfil it so that you might truely live and be able to look back with lots of life experience but no regrets!
“Therefore see that you walk carefully [living life with honor, purpose, and courage; shunning those who tolerate and enable evil], not as the unwise, but as wise [sensible, intelligent, discerning people], making the very most of your time [on earth, recognizing and taking advantage of each opportunity and using it with wisdom and diligence], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish and thoughtless, but understand and firmly grasp what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:15-17 Amp)
Prayer: Lord I want to make my life one in which I won’t look back on with regret, and to not waste the talent and gifts you have given me. Please help me to slow down, to seek you first and to then walk in the plan and purpose you have for my life. In Jesus name Amen.
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