Make Every Day Count

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Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. – Psalm 90:12

What were you called to do today?
Who’s life will cross your path and what kindness will you give?
Who needs forgiveness from you today, mercy, encouragment or strength?

I get so trapped in regrets and frustrations from the past. Sometimes I lose whole weeks sinking in the quicksand of yesterday. Thinking about the future drives me onward. I like to make plans. But both choices can mean that today slips from my grasp.

We wait until tomorrow, but that day seldom comes.

Wake up and remember that your days are numbered and that today is important. Don’t lose it in the chaos and confusion, the tyranny of the urgent.

Imagine all the times that you could take back
What would you have done differently?
Thoughts in your head that you never said
A heart that you broke and left for dead
If all the pain you had could be released

Just One Day, Better Than Ezra

There are people that will cross your path just once. There are things that should be said, things that shouldn’t. If today was all you had, what would you do with it? If it was your last day with your family, at work, with your friends. I don’t mean to be morose, but living a little on the edge, not taking our time for granted, tends to make each moment more significant for us.

Put up a post-it note where you see it all the time and remind yourself that today really matters.

“Forever is composed of nows.” – Emily Dickinson

Empirical Living

I don’t know where I came across this quote…(I think it’s someone’s wisdom that just floats around the internet)

“Don’t let your ears hear what your eyes don’t see, and don’t let your mouth say what your heart doesn’t feel.”

I’m frequently encouraging my social science students to think and speak more empirically. I want them to be more specific and think about what they can feel, hear, see, taste or touch. To take their ideas (or those of others) and try them out, to see if any will hold any water. It’s another avenue to finding the truth.

Each one of us needs to live a life that’s always in search of the truth.

I don’t know about you, but it’s usually easy for me to get fuzzy in my thinking. In fact, it’s a rather common phenomenon among human beings.  Our minds are filled with all sorts of biased thinking.

  • Have you ever heard of the Planning Fallacy? That means that most of us underestimate the time it will take to complete a task.
  • What about the Social Comparison Bias? We don’t like to hire people who we believe will compete with our own particular strengths.
  • Then there is the Well-Traveled Road Effect – we tend to underestimate the time it takes to travel frequent routes and over-estimate the time it takes to travel less familiar routes.

Without even realizing it, we all develop crooked ways of thinking, feeling and then interacting with other people.

“Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” Ephesians 4:29

Does it have to be a cuss word to be considered “foul”? Sometimes, the most abusive words that I use toward others are little, bitty slights and slanders that I speak in jest. I do this automatically, without really thinking. My mouth is way ahead of my heart and soul.

“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:32

To follow the admonition of this Scripture takes deliberate, intentional and selfless living. It will mean more specific thinking about your words and deeds as they bless or harm those around you. You will have to find ways to be much more conscious about other people and to fade away yourself. Once your heart remembers it’s own bondage, it’s so much easier to let go and forgive.

Searching for a Purpose

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

“The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire?”

Slavoj Zizek

“For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.”

Romans 11:29

“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Colossians 3:2-3

I’m not sure we ever outgrow the search for our true self. It’s an endless search for significance. Mostly we find enough in our family, our career and even our friendships. But then things happen that show you how fragile all this can be. We are inspired when we read Paul sharing with the local church that all of his troubles were not going to define him, instead “…we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). In his search for purpose he had learned to look past what could be seen and searched for something more.

What do you really want today?  Learn to want something more, something eternal.

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Just Three Things

I saw this again the other day….

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world; someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

I think I’ve seen it three times in the past few months. It keeps popping up. It must resonate with me for some reason.

  1. Who do you love right this minute? Ever made a list before? Are you certain to tell them, over and over again, before it’s too late?
  2. What is it that you’re doing these days that really matters most to you? To others? To the bigger picture?
  3. Where are your hopes and dreams? Not buried out in the backyard anymore! Are they right in front of you, inspiring you to take one more step? Have they been stolen by the Wicked Witch?

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.  Proverbs 4:23

That means what you’re thinking, how you really feel, and all those pesky worries that keep eating away at your resolve. Guard your mind, your spirit, your smile, your friendships, your prayers (remember to pray for your enemies), your idle thoughts and your past that’s been washed away. Guard your heart from what’s not true. Guard your today from what can’t be changed and what hasn’t even happened yet. Guard what’s real from all the overblown imagination that plays havoc with your dreams and interactions.

Find something eternal to rest your hopes upon, keep yourself busy doing things that really matter and then love people (no matter what you get back).

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world – not even our troubles.” – Charlie Chaplin

(I think this template is hard to read, what do you think?)

Listening and Hearing

“There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.”  ― G.K. Chesterton

I wonder how wide that difference really is?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once made the correlation between the practice of listening to others and being able to listen to God. People who lose their ability to hear what others are saying often stop hearing what God is saying to them as well. He also wrote:

“There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother’s confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community

Have you ever just sat there and decided to keep your big mouth shut and hear all that’s going on around you? It’s usually very difficult for me. I’ve got very important things that should be said! Ha. I wonder how many times it will take me to just sit and listen (practice) before I actually begin to hear.

  • I’m too busy to hear.
  • Can you just text me?
  • Interruptions are so frustrating.
  • There are a thousand things racing through my mind.
  • Oh, I’ve got some great advice for you.
  • You always say the same thing.

Listening and then hearing takes practice. You have to be still. You have to PAY attention. You have to focus on someone other than yourself – instead of rehearsing your response. Sometimes it takes too much courage to be silent. It’s always easier to hide behind shallow responses or run away to the safety of my own bloated opinions.

I know that it takes deliberate (thoughtful) attention. Thinking about other people takes time, understanding, empathy and sacrifice. Hearing means that I’m asking questions instead of shooting off about my own experience. When I decide I want to hear someone I have to let go of my own agenda and accept a different kind of invitation.

 “It takes two to speak the truth – one to speak and another to hear.”  ― Henry David Thoreau

Live in the truth. Practice the truth with one another. Practice listening and hearing.  Come out of the fog of selfishness.

“We live in the bold confidence that God hears our voices…” (I John 5:14, The Voice)

 

A New Year, Another Chance

You wouldn’t believe how many people in America make new year’s resolutions. Guess how many are about weight, health and habits? Eventually our lists start to address walking closer with God. He ended up at number ten on one recent national list I saw. Maybe we think about God only every now and then because we perceive Him to be far away.  But we have to deal with those extra pounds every time we try to put on our pants. What if we had to put on our faith each day like a pair of pants?

I saw this the other day…

“Life has no remote, get up and change it yourself.”

Each day comes with it’s own challenge. I don’t know about you, but I need some inspiration to get me through some of my days. On other days I find that I’m traveling too much on autopilot and not really as engaged as I want to be. I need to be inspired to be the real me, to interact with others in ways that matter. What about you?

I don’t want to sit back and just take what comes. I want to journey each day and keep my balance because I’m walking by faith and not by sight. How are you going to walk into 2015?

“So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

– 2 Corinthians 4:18

Let’s get up, walk into 2015 and practice at keeping our eyes on what lasts forever.