Ok, it's not quite the end of the year, but we're on the back stretch - and the end of the year seems to go by far too quickly. As I'm reflecting back on this year I realize that since pretty much the very first day of the year, God has been working in my heart to give my life completely to him.
That very first sermon of the year, I remember admitting my addictions. I wish I could say that I did away with them entirely and haven't looked back, but I suppose it just doesn't work that way with addictions. I've battled them this entire year - sometimes there have been months and months of not going back (not even looking back). It takes so little sometimes to make us slide off our path. In those moments of weakness, I'm somehow convincing myself that it's not that big of a deal - "just one wasted evening won't matter." It's nonsense.
Our church is now doing a study called "One Month to Live", following the book. The premise is that if you knew you had one month to live, what would you change - and what's keeping you from making those changes now. First of all, we are all dying. We just don't know when our last breath will be taken. However, we live in a safe little bubble to get by rather than living as though we're alive. What struck me last night as I read in the book is their observation that we're all living the dash in between birth and death date. One day our lives will be reduced to a tombstone, where the only thing someone will know about us is our birth and death dates and maybe a quote or something that expresses what was important to us.
So if our life is a dash, this duration of time on earth, why do we live as though we're sustaining ourselves as though the end will never come?
More specifically for my life, I can't stand that I spend eight or nine hours a day (A DAY!) in an office (often in one chair in the office) typing, filing, printing, calling, etc, etc.
My son is growing up.
There is so much I could do in life.
I'm using basically nothing of what God has blessed me with.
Those are my three contentions with being at work all day. Being at this work everyday.
It's not that it's a bad job, but for my life, it's a bit pointless. I have struggled with this for years. I'm feeling a boiling over coming. The point is, if I had one month to live, this job would be the very first thing to go. This job is a sustainer, a get-by-er. It's not living. It's not using this life in a way that praises God. Yes, we can praise God in all places, all circumstances, and all seasons of our lives. My point is that I truly, truly feel that this season in my life should be just that, a season. I feel this season wearing on me, and I see little point in staying. I am here until there is any opportunity not to be here - but that is an entirely different blog entry.
The bottom line is that the reason this all wears on me is because I don't want to just live in the inbetween moments. I don't want to live my life for God in those in between moments. Let me please clarify that it's not as though I come to work, go braindead and think nothing of the kingdom of God until 4:30 when I head home. That is absolutely not true. I understand that we are the kingdom everywhere we are and go. God is molding us to His image, and that is in every moment.
My point is that I'm ready to turn my life over to God in a bigger way. I don't feel like I'm articulating this well.
Let me try to explain this way. The book I'm reading now asks on Day 1 that you list five things you would change if you knew you had one month to live. My list looks like this:
1. Work part-time (combination of sources for income)
2. Love and have grace and mercy for my husband and son more
3. That my work would be an extension of who I am & what I value
4. Be more present for family, even across the miles
5. My heart and faith would be prominent in my life (all aspects, all relationships)
Those are listed vaguely, but what it all boils down to is that every breath of my day would be in the freedom to be an ambassador for Christ - that my relationships would be filled with love, grace, and mercy; that my life would be in service to the relationships in my life; that any kind of work or service that I do is an extension of my faith; that my eulagy would be that I loved whole-heartedly and lived in a way that gave the most glory to God as I could in my little life.
It's not that I can't give of myself in my job. That's not the point. The point, the real point of this entire entry, is that God has been pulling my heart along this year, molding and humbling it. I'm now at a point that I want to give God more glory - and I need to be free to use my talents in order to do that. It is just that simple.
I don't want to live a life where I was locked into a job and made lemons out of lemonade. I want to live a life that joyfully declares that my reason for living, and every decision I make, is my love for God.
I can say nothing more in this blog that more beautifully explains my heart than that last sentence.
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