"What exactly have I been doing the past twelve months?"
"Have I done anything that really matters?"
"Have I made a difference in someone else's life?"
"Did I improve in areas of my life where improvement was needed?"
Many, many questions have filled my mind the last few weeks just like this. I'm normally pretty good about evaluating what it is I'm doing, and setting and meeting goals, but lately, I'm not sure my focus has been on what's really important.
I've come to the conclusion, that just like a tire that gets out of balance, my life has been a little out of balance lately. When a tire isn't properly balanced, it causes the whole vehicle to shake, and become unpleasant to drive. I think life is very much the same.
As a Christ follower (pardon me for a moment if you're not, while I explain a few things) I believe my wants and desires should fall at least second to Christ, but probably further down the line. I've heard people say many times to put Christ in the center of your life, and everything else will fall into place. Well, what does that mean? What does it look like to 'put Christ first'? I'm not totally sure I know how to answer that question yet, but I'll see what I can do.
When your car tire is out of balance, a mechanic will put weights on the rim of the tire to balance everything out. Fortunately for us, there is a machine that tells them exactly where the weights go. For life, it's a little more complicated, at least in my experience. If you or someone you know has this all figured out, shoot me an e-mail. Anyway, I know for sure that for the Christian, Christ has to be first in order to have proper balance.
The ultimate handbook for the Christian is the bible, so I must go there for the answer. Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you love Me, keep my commandments." Well that's pretty broad. In order to do this, we must know what His commandments are. To know the commandments, we must read the handbook.
I'm one of those people that often gets caught up in the details, and sometimes I forget to look to the horizon, at the end goal. This causes me to over complicate things. I'm trying to take a more simplistic view of my daily living this year. I believe there are three things that will help us know how to keep Christ at the center of our lives. If we do these three things, then, as we are going, Christ will reveal more of what He wants us to do.
Number one, I think we should spend some amount of time each day reading the bible. It's a huge book, but just pick somewhere and begin reading. The first four books of the New Testament are a good start, but don't deprive yourself of the great stories of the Old Testament. Stay in the Word. This is very important, and we have to take it on faith that it's helping us regardless of how we feel about it. It's not a matter of legalism, or losing our salvation if we don't read the word, but eventually our Spirit will shrivel to nothing if we don't feed it with the Word. Just do it.
Second, we should spend time praying. There are lots of books on the topic of prayer, but at it's heart, prayer is us talking to God, and us allowing God to talk back (through His Word, circumstances, the Holy Spirit, others). It may seem strange, but it's another one of those faith things.
Lastly, I really believe we should spend time trying to help others. God's word says we are to love Him with all our heart, and love others as ourselves. Jesus said caring for others, and loving others was the second greatest commandment beside loving God. It's something that is very important to Him, so it has to be important to us.
This year I'm going to try to focus on these three things in my daily living; loving God, praying, and caring for others. I feel like it's a worthy goal, but will be challenging. I'm human just like everyone else, and would prefer to do things my way. Trouble is, I've tried it that way, and it didn't pan out well. God's way is always better. Here's to 2009.
NOTE: This post is almost 1 month late. Duh!
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