DAY #7: October 9, 2010

This is the end of week one of our spiritual growth campaign. How are you doing? How are you feeling? I know that change can be had and even a Little scary. Stay the course. Do the work. Put in the time. Pay the price. Flourish. Leave the land of languish. Don't short circuit what God wants to do in your life.

Let's keep going practical, determining to make our lives count. What can you do?

#2. DEFINE MY VALUES -(define what matters most).

James 4:14 says, “How do you know what will happen tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog, it’s here a little while, and then it’s gone.” There’s a nice bright cheery verse, huh? What’s it saying? It’s saying pay attention to how short life is.

Folks, If you knew your time was short (which it is), you make a list. This is the practical part I want to ask you to do this week. Write down everything you would do. The goal of this list is to help you define what matters most - and then live for what matters most.

When I wrote down my list I came up with almost fifty things I would want to do if I had a short time left on this planet to live for the purposes of God. Then I took that list and rewrote a shorter list. I circled the ones that I could put into play every day.

I’ll give you an example of one that made it to the shorter list. To invest in my family by giving them my full attention. Pretty good, but it sounded kind of broad. So I wrote down what would that look like for me to give full attention to my family. I read somewhere once, nothing becomes motivating until it becomes specific. So make your list, then make that specific; Here’s how I got specific…

1. If I am going to give my full attention to my family, I need learn to be a better listener. I will ask follow up questions to their answers. A lot of times I’ll ask my family question, they’ll give me an answer and I’ll go “OK” and go back to what I was doing.. I can’t settle for that – the same old same old.

2. Don’t talk on the phone when anyone from my family is in the car.

3. Don’t get on the computer until the kids go to bed.

4.. Finally, say YES to all the “Dad, do you want to…” questions. “Dad, do you want to play catch?…YES. Dad, do you want to go hit some tennis balls…YES. Dad, do you want to go to bed and leave me and my friends alone?” YES – I guess. Those types of things. This is just one value I want to change, but if I will do the hard work up front, I know God will honor that work.

I keep going back to Psalms 90:12 (LB) "Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should."

What am I encouraging you to do? Squeeze every bit out of every day, every moment that you can. Be intentional. Don't waste this one and only life you've been given.
I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course. ENDURE!