One Month to Live

My wonderful church (LifeSong - you should check it out) has started a challenge called One Month to Live and although I'm only on Day 4, it's been a real eye-opener. The premise is that you examine your life as though you had only a month to live and determine what you would and would not do with those last few weeks. Furthermore, since Christ knew when he would die we should model our reactions after His. Although I can't do some of the things I think I'd do (like give up exercising and eat whatever I wanted), it does make me think about every time-wasting activity I engage in. Surfing around on Facebook - would I do that if I had a limited amount of time to live? No, I think not. In 1st Corinthians 10:23-24 Paul writes "You say, "I am allowed to do anything" - but not everything is good for you. You say, "I am allowed to do anything" - but not everything is beneficial. Don't be concerned for your own good but for the good of others." I'm busy with a lot of things and I generally like it that way. Every once in a while I get overwhelmed by the demands on my time and I start cutting things out. If I had only a month left, I would surely not care about being the PTO Co-President. In fact, the very title of Co-President means that there's another one of them that can take over. Is there anything inherently wrong with being involved in the PTO? No, of course not. I'm serving the school and doing my part to make it the best it can be, for my children and all the others who learn and work there. But is it beneficial? Is it the best use of my time? Well, that's a question I have yet to answer. I can tell you that if an activity needs to be dropped that would probably be the first to go. I had all these big plans (yes, I know - God has a sense of humor) about how it was going to be the most laid-back PTO in history but so far we're still in high gear due to the beginning of the school year and haven't slowed down yet.

One of our first assignments in the One Month book was to write down 5 things that we would change if we knew we only had a month left. One of mine had to do with writing down all the things I would want my children to know. I guess blogging counts for some of that. :-) A second one was to be more free in my worship. That's a biggie. My next chapter in the HOTA book is on Jealousy and Envy. I am so NOT looking forward to reading that one.

And today I got a nice letter in the mail from Larry to say "Welcome to the Worship Team." At least I can stop sweating over that one. No wonder Amanda thought I was so funny when I was at the church yesterday joking about getting it in writing. Here's the interesting part: no sooner had I opened the letter, read it and breathed a sigh of relief than the enemy started in on me with all the lies he uses to make me doubt myself. "He must have felt sorry for you; he didn't have any other choices; your voice isn't anything special" and on and on. Thankfully God has opened my eyes lately to be able to see those lies for what they are. Between Sunday afternoon and today, nearly every possible outcome had played like a movie trailer in my mind and none of the bad ones were God's work either. By the way, I had a dream on Tuesday morning that almost everyone who auditioned made the Worship Team. And of course once I got home on Sunday I thought of at least ten other things I should have said. Worship is ALWAYS meant to point people to God, and when I stand up there on Sunday mornings I want to be a neon arrow pointing straight to heaven. I hope that when people look at me they can see that God is real and He lives, and better yet, that He lives in me. I want to be the usher bringing people into the presence of God, saying, "Come and see!"