For two months I've been signed up to get a daily message on Facebook from Sara Grivas, who writes a daily prayer for wives to pray for their husbands.  Due to the overwhelming response she has gotten, she has been shut down by Facebook and has had to start her own website where you can sign up to receive her daily prayers via email. 

Please check it out -- I can't tell you how many times over the past two months I've gotten a revelation about my relationship with my husband based on her daily messages.  She also has a more general daily prayer for women  that until now I haven't received, but I'm excited about adding it to my daily prayer time!

BTW, I don't know her personally, so this isn't just me trying to promote a friend's site.  I'm recommending it based solely on the quality of her work!

"You only get so many times to ride around this sun."  It's a line from a Christian song, and it's been on my mind a lot lately. 

Perhaps its because I've closed a chapter of my life by leaving my childbearing years behind.  Perhaps its because I look at Livie and can't believe how big she is and how mature she is at times (other times not so much, but you get the point) and I feel like the days, months and years are just slipping away.  Whatever the reason, my mortality has been a source of contemplation lately.  I only get to do this ONCE, and I'm already at least 1/3 of the way finished.  So, the question becomes, how will I live the rest of my life?  How can I make the best of my time on earth?

Another Christian song says something to the effect that I don't want to get to the end and ask how things would have been different if I had given it my everything. 

I believe God put me (and you, for that matter) on this earth for two main reasons:  to worship Him and to love others.  How am I doing on those two fronts?  Am I giving it my everything?

I have struggled for several years off and on with intense panic and fear relating to death.  I believe that these are an attack of the devil.  (Wow, I don't use the term "devil" much, but I truly believe it applies.)  The Bible says that God has not given us the spirit of fear, and that perfect love (His love) casts out all fear.  Ergo, this fear is not of God.

And so today, after a painful panic attack last night, I heard my favorite radio preacher, Jack Hayford, talk about fear and how God's love casts out all fear.  (Thank you, God, for the gentle nudge to remind me you are watching over me.)  Toward the end of the message, he told a story that convicted me greatly wherein he said that God had taught him to love people before he even knew them.  I've never thought of it that way, to pray for anyone I may meet so that I develop a love for them that I can show them once I meet them.  And then there's the people I already know to whom I could show so much more love than I do now. 

With the time I have left, I want to seize each day so that I give it my everything to fulfill my purpose.  In each stage of life, that purpose will likely manifest in different ways, so I want to be flexible and willing to be used in whatever way and in whatever place God has for me. 

Carpe Diem!

I will distill my Bible study on simple living down to this:  God doesn't care how much you have or don't have, as long as you don't place a higher premium on your things than on Him. 

So many of us get our identity completely wrapped up in temporal things, but He wants us to have our identity in Him.  That was the point He made to the rich young ruler, when Jesus told him he had to sell everything he had to follow Him.  For that young man, his identity was in his riches.  It was in his clothes.  It was in what others thought of him because of his possessions.  It was in how his possessions made him feel. 

Not only was it about identity, but for this young man, Jesus knew that his possessions would always be a distraction.  Much like Jesus' teaching to lop off your arm if it is what causes you to sin, in the same way Jesus told this young man to get rid of his possessions because for this particular man, it would require simple living for him to be able to serve Jesus.

But God doesn't require of all of us that we sell our possessions to follow Him.  On the other hand, if that statement makes you feel relieved, then that's likely a signal that you should stop to examine what it is that you are so glad that He isn't asking you to give up.  It just might point you to something that needs to be submitted to Him.   

It's not that He wants to take your precious possessions away from you, it's that He wants you to let it go so that He can be free to either make it grow into something better, or to replace it with something more wonderful.  And that doesn't necessarily mean that if you let your big screen TV go He'll give you an even bigger big screen TV.  His blessings aren't always material, and your material goods may be replaced with non-temporal things.  But if you're submitted to Him, those blessings will make you happier than anything material ever could.

Imagine being the woman Elijah went to seeking food during a severe drought.  She and her son were down to their last bit of oil and flour, and Elijah came and told her to make him some food.  It may seem a small thing to give a small bit of oil and flour, but in reality, by giving her oil and flour, she was surrendering her life and her son's life in order to feed the prophet.  It was the last of her food, the last of her sustenance.  Yet she gave.  And she was rewarded with a miracle, and was provided oil and flour througout the entire time that drought was on the land.   

So, to summarize, it's not that He commands us to live simply or to live with few material goods.  Rather, He asks that we not allow our possessions to become so important to us that we become unwilling to do as He requests.  He asks us to be willing to trade the temporal for the eternal.  He asks to be number one in our lives. 

Is that where He is in your life?  What things are more important than Him to you?