What are you doing??? That’s usually the question we ask someone or ourselves when we stop and check where we are at, and what we are doing with our life? 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.
What consumes your life; your time? Have you ever spent much time thinking about what you should spend your life on, and what you are here for?
For many not enough time is taken to make purposeful choices where we think through the consequences of our actions and spend time seeking God for His plan and guidance. We run ahead, doing what we think up 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 enjoy more fulfilling jobs and edifying pursuits and use of their time.
Instead we can find ourselves “so busy making a living we forget to make a life”. We get 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 never experience lasting abiding joy.
What a tragedy it would be to go through our whole life and at the end of it look back and realize that we’ve spent all our time, money and energy on things that have no lasting significance.
The bible urges us to measure our days, to make the most of every opportunity, and that He has a plan. Most of us unfortunately can get caught up in this fast paced world of going from one thing to the next, one job to the next, and one relationship to the next. When we consistently live like that, rarely taking a moment to catch a breath, we miss taking time out to listen to God, to examine our life, relationships and the need to live purposefully.
So what should we spend our life on?
The bible exhorts us to make eternal things priority. The television shows we watch, the latest news on social media won’t last. All our knowledge, it won’t last. The wealth we accumulate won’t last. Getting our name in the history books doesn’t even matter if we fail to get our name in our book in heaven.
The only things that really matter are those that have eternal significance. 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. Then all the other things the world says are important will be added to us as well” (Matthew 6:33). 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.
Making God a priority simply means giving Him our time and attention. We can easily determine what our priorities are by how much time we spend with someone or something.
When God is a priority, we spend lots of time with Him, in His Word, in prayer and in His presence. If God is number one in our life, what He says goes. One of the benefits is that when we make Him a priority, we in turn discover why He put us on this earth, what His plans for us are, and then how to fulfill those plans.
Each and every person has a God given purpose, talent, gifts and abilities. Take a breathe, have courage and honestly examine your life and discover what your purpose is and then begin to fulfill that purpose and live it everyday.
“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)
“One day our lives will pass before our eyes, lets make it worth watching”
Prayer: Lord please help me to measure my days and to live a life filled with meaning and purpose. I ask for wisdom to prioritise so that what is important, rather than what looks urgent will be first on my schedule today. In Jesus name Amen.
Comments