Do not have two differing weights in your bag - one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house - one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly
Deuteronomy 25:13-16
God is telling us not to have a double standard in anything we do, including what we do with our time everyday. You don’t really know how much time you have, only God does, every minute of everyday has value and meaning.
We started the “One Month To Live, 30 days to a life with no regrets” challenge at Church and it is proving to be an amazing experience. I had the opportunity to take part in this study as a participant and it had a profound impact on me. What a blessing it is for me to now again be re-visiting the 30 day challenge from a leadership role and hear the effects it is having on others. Many of you reading this are included in that group and I hope you are taking an active part in the study. And in the weeks to come I hope to share some examples of individuals different experiences in our present endeavor. The premise of the study is simple:
If you found out today that you only had 30 days to live, what would you do?
While we can’t really re-create what happens to individuals that get this news it is an interesting exercise. When you look at what you did last week, would you have done all the things you did if you only had 30 days left to live? Probably not. Most of us have put schedules together that are just too busy. And too often those schedules are based on what others tell us is important or must be done; our needs and desires become secondary. And the two areas that most begin to make compromise?
Health and Spirituality, two large factors in our relationship with Christ.
We stop exercising and eating right. That’s hard to do when you work so many hours or have made so many commitments to get our kids to different activities. It’s just easier to swing through the drive thru and get a burger than put the effort into something healthy.
Church and the activity that surrounds it becomes “flex time”, time we determine that we can be done later to make up for missing. Truth is we seldom make up the time we take away from the Lord, He won’t mind… Will He?
We live in such a performance based society that downtime and rest is looked at as laziness by some. I’ve been around discussions in the business world where schedules are compared to see who does the most so full of pride that one could only assume there was a trophy for the winner. Does anyone really win in that competition?
We all have to dates in our lives we have no control over, a start and an end. The day we were born is set and determined we use this as a cause for celebration every year. But the day we’re all going to die is something with very few exceptions, we just don’t know. We’ve all heard stories about the super healthy guy that had a heart attack while jogging. And conversely some people live into their 90’s and even clear a 100 all while smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. We just don’t know.
Every tombstone in a cemetery has three things in common, the day they were born and the day they died and the dash mark between the two dates. And while we have no control over the two dates, we do have complete control over how we use the dash mark between them. That little dash mark between the day we were born and the day we died is the summation of the life we lived. How are you living your dash?
For the next month or so the writing you find on this site will be dedicated to my experience and thoughts that surround the One Month To Live, 30 day challenge. Every week we look at some principles designed to help us look at what is really important in life, things worth the value the Lord has assigned to time. If you aren’t a member of Green Acres or don’t happen to live in Tyler, TX you can still join us. Just ask yourself the question...
What would you do if you only had 30 days to live?
Grace and peace,
Jeff
