What's Important?

If you are like most people you can get caught up in the hustle and bustle of every day life and fall into the trap of  thinking that 'everything is important'. Let me encourage you today to sort out what you spend your days either doing or thinking about and determine what is truly important. Ask yourself 'if today was my last day on earth, would I really get upset by this?' or 'if today was my last day on earth, would I waste so much time doing this?'. Now let's understand that some things are unavoidable and we must do them, such as going to a job to support our family or doing chores that we don't particularly enjoy but must be done. But what I am talking about are the millions of things that we waste our time and energy on that we don't need to. The little stresses in our life that in a year from now would not even be remembered.

I have a friend who is battling cancer right now in a hospital. She has had to undergo intensive treatment to kill this disease. Her everyday schedule has come to a grinding stop and has been replaced with tests and procedures and the poking and prodding of doctors and nurses. And today I found out that the husband of another friend has been diagnosed with cancer. It's times like these that we realize how petty some of our grievances actually are, how useless our rushed schedule is and how much time we actually waste doing 'stuff' instead of enjoying the people the Lord has placed in our lives.

I am guilty of this too. I live on a beautiful island that is surrounded by white sandy beaches and although it is already July I have only been to the beach twice so far this year. Every time I say that tomorrow I will go to the beach with Alannah and Lilly Rose (her cocker spaniel), something else comes up that prevents us from going. Basically what I need to do is to cherish every day that I have with my daughter and treat her as the important person she is in my life. Pretty soon she will be grown and moved out on her own and I will wish for the times we could have gone to the beach together.

What's important? I mean, what's really important? If tomorrow your life would be required of you, what would you regret you hadn't done? Focus on what is truly important.....I think I'll take my daughter to the beach now.

 "Pay attention, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town. We will stay there a year, buying and selling, and making a profit.” You don’t really know about tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for only a short while before it vanishes." James 4:13-14