A week in a hospital bed will force you to reevaluate parts of your life. It wasn’t just the boredom of counting the 68 ceiling squares over my bed. It's the sudden realization that maybe your pace of life is too much and you need to concentrate more on the things that are most important. Outside of family and how much they mean to me, here are a few that I believe are worth passing on to you:
Your time with God is more precious than you realize.
It has renewed my commitment to my own time with God. As a pastor, you might think that spending time with God is easy. Isn’t it in the job description? And that might be the danger, thinking that a relationship with God is a job. It’s so much more than a part of what I share with you. Our relationship with God is our life. It is the one thing that will carry us through this life and into the next. Nothing else can do that. So, my morning begins with time for just God and me. There is no substitution for investing time in my relationship with Him. It is why here, at church, we talk so much about life change and being involved with His word outside of Sunday morning. We just don’t want you to think about God, we want you to experience Him yourself. Not just the 'aha' I heard someone teach something that seems right, but the personal “aha” when you read something for yourself and it feels like God left it there just for you to find. We all need to find that personal space with Him. Where He can speak directly into our lives, and we can speak directly to Him. It's why we invest so much into teaching our children. It's not just morals and right and wrong. It's knowing God. It's why the retreats they get away for are so important. This weekend, the high school teens will be at Statewide. Next weekend, our Tweens with be at SuperStart. The end of next month, the jr. higher students will go to Believe. Pray for them. In our busy world, God has a hard time getting our attention. I cannot imagine how much more distracted our teens and preteens are. These are moments that God prepares to grab their attention in new and special ways.
Life was meant to be lived on purpose.
We were not designed to float through life, just counting the weeks as they go by to our next vacation. I believe that God puts us here for a purpose. Some people find their purpose. Some don’t even look for it. The creator made you unique. And for those of us who do not find that unique part we play in God’s work in this world, we miss out. We miss out on the best thing we were created for. You were created by God for a purpose. So was our church. Every church. The first Sunday of March, we will talk about our Church’s purpose. The time with our consultant has helped sharpen our focus and the things we need to work on. In May and June, we will take more time to break down those purposes so we all understand how we can help: what our part is. For many of us, it will be the very thing God created us for. That is the cool part of being part of a church. It allows us to find our purpose in God’s kingdom too. And that is why the classes we offer on Sunday mornings are so important.Knowing God is about how we personally build a relationship with him (March 17). The MCC Membership class is about how you can get involved with the church here, and find your purpose. (March 24). Don’t wait till you are laying in a hospital bed to evaluate your life: to figure out what is most important. I may be stubborn, but I eventually hear Him. So can you. Growing with you,