"GET A LIFE!"

Now this here's a blog about two sets of Joneses, which one will you be?  :)  (haha, name that tune!)

"Do not keep the alabaster box of your love and friendship sealed up until your friends and family are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness, speak cheering words while their ears can hear, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them. The kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go."  --George William Childs

What do you think of when you hear the phrase, "GET A LIFE!"?  Someone recently said this to me and the following verses from God's Word come to mind:

"As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received."  --Ephesians 4:1 (NIV 1984)

"In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."  --1 Timothy 6:19 (NIV 1984)

Let me show you that one again in context:
"Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you."  --1 Timothy 6:18-21 (NIV 1984)

Ever since I turned 33, I feel a sense of urgency.  I am in a Book of Ecclesiastes state of mind.  By that I mean I am asking myself the huge question that is asked all throughout that book, "What is the point?"  What is the purpose of this life?  More importantly, what is God's purpose for my life?  I feel that I have no more time to waste.  When pondering the phrase "GET A LIFE!" these verses strike me in the heart more than any other:

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."  --James 4:13-17 (NIV 1984)

I wrote the following verses at the very beginning of one of my personal journals:

"Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you."  --Psalm 39:4-5, 7 (NIV 1984)

NOW oh Lord...right now...what am I looking for?  What am I doing?  I don't want to waste any more time!  I've said before the phrase from a song, "I want to live like I'm leaving..."  The song is an old song from a band that may not even be around anymore, East to West.  Anyway, did you know anyone personally who left the Earth this year?  For me, one of the greatest tragedies sometimes is not that the person passed away, but how my relationship was with them at the time they passed away.  What could I have done that I never did?  What could I have said that I never said?  What walls did I build between us that made their way to the grave?  What grudges did I carry to that person's dying day?  Read the first quote I posted at the top of this page again.

There's no more time...no more time to waste.  Every day we have a choice to make about the type of person we are going to be.

Am I going to be the kind of person who creates drama or the kind that refuses to take it on?

Am I going to be the kind of person who maliciously gossips ("godless chatter") and tears people down with my words or the kind that lifts people up with God's Word?

Am I going to be the kind of person who is two-faced and speaks evil behind your back or the kind that is honest, truthful, and transparent?

Am I going to be the kind of person who is selfish and self-centered or the kind who is selfless with a servant's heart and looks to the needs of others?

Am I going to waste my time and money on material garbage that I can't take with me in a U-HAUL or lay up treasures in heaven by sharing the Gospel with the lost?

Am I going to let other people raise my children for me or step up and be the wife and mother that God has called me to be?

These are the questions I ask myself.  For me, the choice is clear.  Time is running out.  So, the next time I hear the phrase, "GET A LIFE!" I am going to do what I did the first time I heard it and take comfort in God's Word and have peace about the new thing that God is doing in and with my life.  Am I living a life worthy of the calling I have received?  Am I laying my treasure up in Jesus, the only true Firm Foundation?  God did not give me this life to waste on anything else.

How about you?  Which one will you be?