Sunday, January 13, 2008

168: One Life



One Life, originally uploaded by chanchanchepon.
While I was in North Carolina at the Faithwalkers Conference, i took this photo of a cross that also served as multiple cell phone antenna's function and form at their best.

I thought it was an appropriate image to correspond to the first blog of our new series at h2o 168. The first message is One Life. The series started as a thought about what we do with our time. We have 168 hours every week to use to glorify God or to focus our energies on something else. The average lifespan of a human being on the earth is about 68 years, so we thought that the first week it might be good to talk in a broad sense about our life and what each of us is living for as a priority.

Psalm 90.12 says, "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." In that spirit, we began our series by examining how many days we have in this life.

We have one life to live. If we live to age 68, the average person will spend one third of that life sleeping. (approximately 23 years). That's if they get 8 hours of sleep a day during their 24,820 days.

The remainder, approximately 45 years of our life are what we spend eating, drinking, watching tv, going to school, going to work, and spending time with friends and family among other things.

But the goal of all of this time, all 24,820 days, is to learn how to make God the number one priority. So that He informs our leisure, our study, our work, and our conversation. In essence, so that we live all of life for His glory.

One of the best first steps to seeing that become a reality is to make time with God a priority. When our days become crowded, our time in scripture and in prayer seem to take the hit before anything else. So the first step is to change our priorities and make time with God number one.

We can do that by spending time in His Word as well as in prayer.

In the words of the missionary Jim Elliot, "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." When God is the priority, everything else in our life falls into it's proper place.

As 2008 gets under way, I want to encourage you to make that your goal for 2008--begin the transformation. You only have one life, and, if you are fortunate, you might have 68 years. Make them count for Christ.

1 comment:

young wife&mom said...

i am continually inspired by the wa you use your 168. may the God who provides continue to provide for you in every way..as you share His message to a world in desperate need.