My dear friend Sherrie shared some excerpt of this with me today, and I in turn wanted to share it with the people I hold dear. It talks about trusting God and living life joyfully. The whole thing is great, but I will post just a portion here.
Even though we live in a highly structured, controlled, activity-oriented culture that is becoming more so...we need to resist that trend. We need to hold ourselves personally responsible for not becoming so activity-oriented that we forget that we are here to be instruments of God. When we act as instruments of God, the number of activities fades out, but our effectiveness grows enormously. You will be in the right place at the right time saying the right things to the person who needs it. When God is working through me, it is such a wonderful feeling that I wonder why I don't allow it to happen more often...
So what will we do with our lives? How do we give up our planners? How do we give up the belief that life is hard and hard work never killed anyone? The key to living life joyfully is to examine your views of God and the characteristics you are attributing to him. I would urge you to move away from suffering into an appreciation of the joyful, generous, expressive character of the Father. As you do that, you will grow in trust. He is a loving God, and therefore we can trust our whole lives in his hands. After changing your notions of who the Father is, experiment with turning over an hour, then a day. Then try committing a week to expressing your gifts. You don't have to know how. You just have to express your desire to the Lord, and he will make the way clear. Experiment. Notice how your life feels, and compare it to how it feels when you are busy planning, controlling, holding on, and being fearful. Your own experience will show you that a delightful opportunity exists to experience life joyfully—but it requires a different relationship with the Father. Remember, "For the earth is full and there is enough to spare." We are all wonderful, exquisite beings created by a wonderful, joyful, generous Father. It's time to start celebrating the Creator and celebrating each other in very new and different ways.
Last night we were eating dinner at my mom's house. They had the TV on and were listening to the news. The reporter said that there were people who believed that the world is supposed to end this evening. I have been thinking about that today as I have gone about my work. If I believed today was my last day on earth, would I be doing things differently than I am right now? What would I be doing? What would I change? Would I be serving more, loving more, calling and visiting those I love? I think I will do that today.
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